Lotus team second in qualifying session

Nurburgring (Germany) – The Lotus Sport UK pairing of Sailesh Bolisetti and Phil Glew qualified sixth (race one) and second (race two) in the British GT4 championship, here Friday.

Bolisetti, driving the Lotus Evora GT4, had spent most the practice familiarising himself with the circuit layout and had endured a difficult period after the team decided to put on brand new brakes ahead of the qualifying session. This meant that Sailesh had to spend a couple of laps bedding the new pads in.

“Usually, we don’t go with any major changes ahead of qualifying or race, but we decided to change the brakes and the team instructed me how to bed them in,” revealed Bolisetti.

“However, even after a couple of laps (the qualifying is just 15 minutes), it didn’t feel right and the brake pedal felt unusually soft and I wasn’t feeling confident in the braking zones.

“As a result, I locked up a couple of times into turn one especially and with the pressure of putting a lap in, it was not the most ideal situation to be. Hopefully, we would be able to sort these issues before the race.”

Glew also encountered bad luck when two slipped (damaged) wheel-nuts left him stranded in the garage for seven minutes during the second 15-minute qualifying session. As a result, he just had enough time to do a warm-up lap followed by just one timed lap.

Despite ending on the front row of the grid with P2, Bolisetti reckoned there was more pace to come.

“These tyres usually produce the best lap on the second timed lap so we could’ve definitely been quicker. It was unfortunate, since it has been looking pretty good through the weekend till this point.

“Just 0.072 seconds separated us from pole position, so it is incredibly close. But I need to work on my driving style. On the limit in the dry the Evora GT4 demands quite an aggressive driving style,” said Bolisetti.