A GEARBOX failure denied New Forest's Justin Keen a possible podium finish in the famous Spa 1,000 kilometre race in Belgium.

Keen put the Lister LMP 900 fifth on the grid after a gutsy performance in wet qualifying, then looked on hopefully as teammate Jan Magnusson quickly swept past a couple of Zyteks to move up into third position.

Two hours into the race, with two pit stops completed and the top three cars still to make their second stop, the Lister was a secure fourth, then trouble struck.

Earlier in the race Magnusson had been shunted up the rear by the Neilsen Zytek. Then he ran over a pile of debris left by a huge accident involving one of the Porsches.

Keen said: "Either incident could have caused it, but the car suddenly developed a gearbox problem which forced us out."

The Lister team went to Spa on the back of Keen's seventh-place finish in the FIA GT race at Monza.