It has been a weekend of challenging weekend for Ryan Yardley in GT4 America, coming home with an eighteenth and a twenty-eighth at Atlanta Motorsports Park.
GT4 Race 1
In the first race, co-driver Damir Hot started from nineteenth position in the one-and-a-half-hour race and stayed there for most of his first stint. After fifteen minutes, he soon cycled down to twenty-second, and held position until Yardley jumped in the car at the halfway mark.
From there, the Kiwi had his work cut out as he climbed from the back of the pack, sitting outside of the top 25 for the first fifteen minutes of his stint, and remained there until a full-course yellow came out with fifteen minutes to go.
As the pack closed back up, he was able to take full advantage and started to climb back up the pack, moving into twenty-fourth with six minutes to go, and started picking them off as he worked his way through.
Yardley put the pedal to the medal as he moved his way up to eighteenth at the line, showing great racecraft and skill. Eighteenth is where he would cross the line, ending a tricky first race for the Kiwi.
GT4 Race 2
After a tricky first race, Yardley and Hot started the second race in a promising seventh position. This time, the Kiwi would start the race, but fell back to eleventh off the start. However, the field was still condensed, allowing the Kiwi to keep on the tail of the drivers ahead.
As the stint eventuated, it was clear that Yardley did not have the pace of the cars around him as he soon fell to thirteenth. As the race went on, Yardley fell back down to eighteenth, making it clear there was a bigger issue at play and that something may be wrong with the car.
Yardley handed the car over to Hot in nineteenth position, and Hot soon fell out of the top twenty-five as the race progressed. He moved to the rear of the field, but soon caught back up as a full course yellow came out for an incident on track.
With fifteen minutes to go, the race resumed with Hot in twenty-fourth. However, he soon retired from the race, leaving the #25 classified in twenty-eighth at the finish, eight laps down.
After a tricky weekend in GT4 America, Yardley will be looking to rebuild next time out at Road America, starting on the eighth of August.
