“I just feel sorry for the crew and everyone involved because it looked like we were going to be celebrating last night, but it wasn’t to be.”

Proving his pace in qualifying was no fluke, Buurman built a 1.5 second lead over the 58-strong field by the end of lap one and had increased his margin to 3.5 seconds before the race was neutralised by the safety car on lap eight.

Buurman led a pack of four into the pits at the end of their window, with Stolz assuming the controls in 44^th position. However another Safety Car meant his deficit to the leaders, due in for their second stops shortly afterwards, was drastically reduced and helped bring the team back into play.

By the end of his 29-lap stint, Stolz had cycled back through to second, beforeChristodoulou climbed aboard for his first stint in 21^st position.

The Briton continued the car’s progress through the field as the sun set and executed a fine pass on the No. 2 Audi, which had been stubbornly defending its position for several laps, to get himself into some clear air and chip away the gap to the leading No. 99 BMW, running a similar divergent strategy.

“It was a confusing race to follow, which I think was due to us being offset against everyone else,” Christodoulou said.

“There was a lot of discussions trying to figure out whether it would be the right thing to do or not, but we made the decision and stuck with it. I think at one point we ended up on the third page of the timing screens, but as people started to pit we made our way back into the lead.

“It was tough out there in the traffic because we were really strong in the tight and twisty third sector, but it was a little tough to overtake. We weren’t sure where we were going to end up until the final stops were completed, so all we could do was push as hard as we could.”

Stolz resumed in fifth and kept the car in contention as track temperatures dropped before giving the reigns to Christodoulou for the final run to the flag.

Running third and closing on the second-placed No. 72 Ferrari, Christodoulou was feeling positive when the car suddenly lost power at turn 12 and coasted back to the pits into retirement.

“It’s extremely unusual because the AMG is known for its durability and being bullet-proof, it’s the first time this has happened.

“We’ve been working extremely hard at Black Falcon and AMG to iron out any problems and optimise our package, but although we didn’t get the result in the end, it was nice to put on an extremely strong performance and it looked like we were going to be the top AMG as well.

“We had a mega qualifying, all of us were quick and at the start of the race we were definitely in control. Everyone knows we were one of the main cars to beat, so it’s definitely given us a good confidence boost heading to Spa and hopefully we can carry the momentum into the 24 Hours.”