With rain hammering down on the Circuit de la Sarthe, the 24 Hours of Le Mans got under way behind the safety car – a first in the history of the legendary race.  Patience was the watchword for the drivers until Race Control deemed the conditions safe enough to call in the safety car and start the racing in earnest. Some cars had however suffered from the waterlogged track more than others. Eurasia Motorsport’s Oreca 05 was one of them. “I had to pit twice with electrical problems caused by all the water on the track,” Tristan Gommendy declared. “First, one of the accelerator sensors got wet, and then the steering wheel connections were affected which meant that we had to fit a new steering wheel. All in all, we were two laps behind when the race finally got going after almost fifty minutes behind the safety car.”

Gommendy and his rookie teammates, Kevin Pu Jun Jin and Nick de Bruijn, fought throughout the evening, the night and the early hours of the morning to get back on terms with the leaders. After 242 laps, the Oreca 05 re-entered the Top Ten overall – and stayed there. “At that point, we had achieved the target we set ourselves before the race: making the Top Five in class. From 8am through to the finish at 3pm, my teammates and I kept our part of the deal by maintaining a good pace without taking any undue risks. We crossed the finish line fifth in LM P2 and ninth overall.”

Eurasia Motorsport is competing in the European Le Mans Series this season. But will this taste of the world’s greatest endurance race provide the stimulus to enter the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in 2017, with loftier ambitions for their return to Le Mans?

Quotes translated from Tristan Gommendy’s press release.

Photo: Tristan Gommendy at the pit wall as night falls at Le Mans. 

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