Racing Engineering aces its debut in endurance

Impending victory for Racing's Engineering's #24 ORECA 07-Gibson was a sure thing except for Nicolas Lapierre, at the wheel of DragonSpeed's #21 ORECA 07-Gibson, who had led the race throughout the first hour. Incredibly, the Racing Engineering team had never competed in endurance before, having come directly from single-seaters (GP2 Series). But it was clear the trio Norman Nato-Paul Petit-Olivier Pla, the latter an official Ford driver in the World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC), was extremely solid.

TDS Racing's #33 ORECA 07-Gibson shared by François Perrodo, Loïc Duval and Mathieu Vaxivière reached the second step on the podium. The three men did an impressive race and finished ahead of Duqueine Engineering's #29 ORECA 07-Gibson driven by Nelson Panciatici, Pierre Ragues and Nicolas Jamin despite incurring a drive-through penalty for causing a collision. The top 5 was completed by G-Drive Racing's #26 ORECA 07-Gibson of Andrea Pizzitola, Roman Rusinov and Alexandre Imperatori, and Signatech Alpine's #36 Alpine A470-Gibson. Signatech Alpine and TDS Racing participated in this ELMS round as preparation for the 2018-2019 WEC Super Season and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (June 16-17n).

The safety car was only deployed once, two hours into the race, and allowed positions to tighten up. It was necessary to extricate the Spirit of Race team's #55 Ferrari 488 GTE (Duncan Cameron) after contact was made with DragonSpeed's #21 ORECA 07-Gibson (Henrik Hedman). Note that of the cars in the top 10, there were eight ORECA chassis and two Ligiers, those of Panis Barthez Competition (eighth and a contender early in the race before a flat tire) and United Autosports (#32, ninth). 

RLR MSport dominates the LMP3 class

RLR Msport took the reigns in LMP3 and never let go, winning the class with the #15 Ligier JS P3 driven by Job Van Uitert, Rob Garofall and John Farano. M.Racing YMR claimed the second step on the class podium with the #19 Norma M30-Nissan shared by Lucas Légeret, David Droux and Nicolas Ferrer ahead of Eurointernational's Ligier JS P3 driven by KayVan Berlo and Giorgio Mondini.

JMW Motorsport maintains its momentum

In LMGTE, though Porsche - especially the #88 911 RSR of Gianluca Roda, Giorgio Roda and Matteo Cairoli - had dominated in qualifying and was headed to victory, JMW Motorsport's #66 Ferrari 488 GTE driven by Liam Griffin, Alex MacDowall and Miguel Molina snatched the win in the final lap. The defending ELMS champion team and winner at the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMGTE Am has definitely kicked off the season in ideal fashion. Rounding out the podium was Ebimotors' #80 Porsche 911 RSR shared by Raymond Narac, Riccardo Pera and Fabio Babini.

The race results are HERE

The second round of the European Le Mans Series will take place May 13th at the Monza circuit in Italy.

 

PHOTO (Copyright - MPS Agency/Laurent Cartalade)