On May 22nd, the third round of the American Le Mans Series 2010 was held on the legendary circuit of Laguna Seca. At the end of 2009 the JaguarRSR XKR GT made its debut on this Californian race track. Before the race, Jaguar RSR accomplished a successful 2-day test session at Road Atlanta.

After useful free practice sessions Marc’s team mate, Ryan Dalziel, drove the qualifying session. He was 11th fastest in the GT-class.

On Saturday afternoon Marc took the start of the 6-hour race. After 54 laps “The Goose” came in to hand over the car to Ryan Dalziel. At that moment the Jaguar was 9th in the GT-class. The pit stop went well until Ryan tried to restart the engine. An alternator belt failure, which caused the battery power to be lower than normal, prevented the car from starting. The JaguarRSR team didn’t give up and replaced the battery. After a 78 lap stint of Dalziel, Marc drove the last part of the race. After 6 hours and 191 laps, he finished 29th overall an 13th in GT. During his last run, Marc did set the fastest race lap for the JaguarRSR XKR GT.

“The #75 JaguarRSR XKR GT had a pretty good balance but we still seem to be struggling with finding overall grip,” said Marc. “Towards the end of the race, the track got better and our times were faster. I think it was good for us doing consistent runs and learning as much as we can about the car during this weekend. Unfortunately with the battery going early on we lost quite a few laps which took away a bit of the challenge. But it is good that it happened now so we can start looking into it and find the issues for Le Mans, and that is what we are doing this for.”

The next race is the most challenging of the year: the Le Mans 24 hours!

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