Alex Kapadia hopes his starring performance with Murphy
Prototypes in the 4 hours of Silverstone will help him secure a seat for the
second round of the European Le Mans Series at Imola. Brought into the fold on
a one-off basis with Tor Graves suffering from shingles, silver-rated Kapadia was
awarded the Radio Le Mans ‘Spirit of the Race’ Award for his relentless pace in
the race’s middle stint, which culminated in the race’s third fastest lap just
a few tenths shy of platinum-rated team-mate Karun Chandhok. Sadly however,
this amounted to little, with the Murphy team already six laps down thanks to a
jump-start penalty and a puncture which destroyed the left-front bodywork, contriving
to ruin what had been a race which promised much. Eighth place was scant reward for their
efforts and left the 33 year-old to rue what might have been.
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| Kapadia set the third quickest lap of the race in only his third race at this level. (Credit: ELMS Media) |
“We would have won it, in my mind there’s no question,”
Kapadia said afterwards. “Even with the penalty, Gonzo [Rodolfo Gonzalez] did a
great recovery drive to get us back up to fourth and we were 17 seconds behind
the Jota car when we got the puncture. Maybe other factors would have come in,
but we were on for a win today. It didn’t happen, but if I get another shot and
the other guys are the same then I’m sure we can be in a position to do it
again. I’m over the moon about [the Spirit of the Race Award], I’d
swap it for a win but that’s about it really!"
Still only in his third race at this level, after two
outings for Boutsen Ginion in 2013, Kapadia feels there is still much more to come and is eager for more opportunities to shine.
“I’ve learned a lot from Karun this weekend, he’s extremely
professional and very, very quick, so I’m chuffed to have got close to his
times,” he said. “Really we had no option but to go for it; there was nothing
to lose so I just gave it everything. I just made sure not to lose any time in
traffic, went for every gap and pushed as hard as I could. I still feel there might have been a little
bit more there if it hadn’t been for the traffic, but I can get the whole list of
excuses out if you want!”
“I don’t have a massive pot of gold, so I have to make my opportunities by pushing as hard as I can. Greg will tell you I’ve been pestering him all winter, as will a few other team owners. After Imola if there is a seat available, my ultimate ambition is to do Le Mans at some stage. One day I’ll get there, I’ve just got to keep trying to make it happen.”
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