Embassy Racing missed out on a podium finish in the final round of the Le Mans Series at
Silverstone after a time penalty handed to Jonny Kane and Warren Hughes saw them lose third in the LMP2 class.
With Kane found guilty of passing a red light at the end of the pit lane, the pair were hit with a five minute penalty post race, which prevented the #45 WF01 from bringing home a well earned podium.
With the two Embassy cars having qualified seventh and eighth in class, hopes were high for a strong end to the campaign for the team in its first year in LMP2 and when the race kicked off, the #45 car of Hughes and Kane was soon picking up places. However, there was misfortune for team-mates Darren Manning and Joey Foster in the early stages when a bearing failure led to a lengthy pitstop that left them well out of contention as they finished outside the top ten.
Hughes and Kane battled their was into the top three and were running in the podium positions despite the car suffering a clutch failure that led to problems in the pit stops as the car had to be started in gear.
With around forty five minutes of the race remaining, Kane entered the pit lane for his final regulation stop when a incident on track led to the deployment of the Safety Car.
Having already started the car on the starter motor, Kane was crawling towards the pit lane exit with red light in front of him as the field came round onto the start/finish straight. Without the option of holding the car in neutral and uncertain as to whether he would be able to restart it on the starter motor again, Kane made the decision to exit under red and pay the penalty during the race.
Kane radioed back to inform the team of the incident but no penalty was applied during the closing stages of the race with the car taking the flag in a fine third in class. However, as the pair were then preparing to take to the podium, the team was informed it was being a five minute penalty for the incident and dropped down to sixth place as a result.
