Greaves Motorsport continued their strong start to the 2014 season with another good result, this time at the 4 Hours of Imola, the second round of the 2014 European Le Mans Series. Driving the team's Nissan powered Zytek LM P2 prototype Tom Kimber-Smith and Matt McMurry climbed through the field, following a pre-planned strategy, only just missing out on a podium position to finish fourth.

Building on his sensational début for the team last month at Silverstone, 16 year old Matt McMurry, proved that he not only could run at a competitive pace in this quality field but also that he has true grit and stamina. Starting from seventh place on the grid Matt drove a triple stint, some 2 hours, 22 minutes of racing, a big ask even for an experienced driver. Incredibly he completed this on one set of Dunlop tyres, that in compliance with the regulations had also been used earlier during the Official Qualifying session. This performance speaks volumes about both the driver and the tyre.

Three time Le Mans Champion, Tom Kimber-Smith, took the wheel for the final two stints to complete the race. As usual he displayed a front running pace, making up places to bring the car home fourth.

Team Principal, Tim Greaves. “Before the race we analysed the potential race strategies with our engineers and drivers and came up with what we thought would be the optimum solution, sacrificing ultimate speed to maximise the fuel economy and reduce the time spent in the pits. This nearly succeeded as we were only only lap down at the Chequered Flag. We lost approximately that amount of time at our first three pit stops which coincided with the stops of the car in the next pit box. Each time we had to push our car back to manoeuvre around them. 

We have also had a persistent engine misfire in both races this year that cost us time on each lap. Post race we have traced the fault to a spark plug issue and hopefully we can now put that problem behind us.

On the positive side Matt proved again that he is mature beyond his years and never put a foot wrong despite the difficulty of completing a triple stint on one set of tyres, it was a great performance. Tom anchored the team as usual and on another day would have grabbed a podium position. The guys on the team did their usual stellar job backed up by another top line performance from our partners, Nissan, Zytek and Dunlop. ”

Team Manager, Jacob Greaves. “Fourth place was not perhaps a reflection of the true potential of the team, the car and the strategy today. However we are still in a good position in the Championship, well in touch with the leaders. This is entirely due to the great job done by the drivers, the engineers and, as ever, the crew. Next up is Le Mans and the world's greatest race, we anticipate another strong performance there as we have shown in the past.”