UPDATE: COOL Racing’s #17 Ligier JS P320 of Adrien Chila, Marcos Siebert and Alejandro Garcia has been named the winner of the LMP3 class, after Racing Spirit of Leman was handed a time penalty by the stewards last night.
The Racing Spirit of Leman team was found to have completed one of its two mandatory pit stops during an FCY proceedure, something which is not permitted by the 2023 Sporting Regulations.
The team was handed a 105-second penalty, which has dropped it to third in class, promoting COOL Racing and Inter Europol Competition into the top three places.
TF Sport-run outfit Racing Team Turkey scored a dramatic victory in the first European Le Mans Series race of the 2023 season at Barcelona this afternoon.
En route to the win, the team’s LMP2 Pro/Am-entered ORECA had to overcome a late unscheduled stop in the final half hour for a rear-end change which cost the team the lead after a faultless run to the front in the first half of the race. The setback prompted a head-turning fightback drive from Louis Deletraz, who starred under pressure. After the rapid stop for the rear change, he reeled in Duqueine Team’s Neel Jani and reclaimed the lead at Turn 7 with a daring move up the inside with 15 minutes to go.
Jani had no answer after Deletraz got by and finished 2.3 seconds behind in the #30 Duqueine ORECA he shared with Rene Binder and Nicolas Pino, which came home second overall but first in the LMP2 class. After the race, Jani revealed that he was struggling with brake temperature during his stint and was taking a cautious approach to ensure he made it home without a brake disc failure.
The drama for the winning car came with 33 minutes remaining when the Turkish-flagged team was handed a black and orange flag for a piece of flapping bodywork at the rear of the car. Somewhat controversially, the race director called the car in after its final scheduled stop, even though the car was clearly damaged before it came in.
It was a decision that the team, and in particular Deletraz, were both upset and puzzled by.
“Big thank you to the team,” a relieved Deletraz said after the race. “They gave me the car in the lead, it was going so perfectly. We want to win races overall, we didn’t expect this straight away.
“(Paul) Di Resta hit me under FCY, he was three laps down, I don’t know what he was thinking. It caused big damage. A black and orange flag just after our final pit stop was a silly decision from the race director. I am not happy at all, but we showed we had pace and we won. We will turn the page on that but I am not happy with that decision.”
In pursuit of Jani, Deletraz said he was driving “angry” behind the wheel, and when he saw Jani up ahead, thought, “I’ve got to go for it.”
Overall it was an impressive showing from Racing Team Turkey, which gradually moved into contention for the win as the four-hour race wore on. Salih Yoluc, who set the Pro/Am pole yesterday, was superb in the opening portion of the race, keeping the car in contention, before handing over to Charlie Eastwood, who caught and passed Pino for the lead of the race with just over 90 minutes to go. It was then down to Deletraz to bring it home, which he did in fine style.
However, the battle between Eastwood and Pino wouldn’t have been for the lead had disaster not struck the #25 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA just after the halfway mark.
The #25 crew looked set to dominate this race. The car started on the front row and moved into the lead after a mature stint from Ganassi development driver Kyffin Simpson, who bided his time in the opening laps and fought his way past Vladislav Lomko’s #47 COOL Racing ORECA which started from pole position (and finished seventh).
James Allen then took over and managed the gap over the chasing Duqueine ORECA. However, the Australian was tapped into a spin at Turn 10 by Laurents Horr in the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA, who made a clumsy dive up the inside trying to un-lap himself.
The contact sent Allen into a spin, the car coming to a halt with its rear tyres in the gravel, stuck and unable to get traction. The delay handed the lead to Pino and dropped the car off the lead lap. The #25 would eventually finish eighth overall, in what was a hugely disappointing opening race for Simpson, Allen and Alex Lynn, who look like clear title contenders this season.
Behind the Team Turkey and Duqueine ORECAs, the overall top three was completed by the #83 AF Corse 07 that took second in LMP2 Pro/Am in the process after a spirited drive from Ben Barnicoat in the final stint, set up by fine performances from Francois Perrodo and Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Fourth overall would go the way of the #37 COOL Racing ORECA, which finished third in LMP2 Pro/Am, after Malthe Jakobsen’s heroics late in the race in what was a red-hot battle for the final podium spots in both P2 classes, involving multiple cars.
Panis Racing’s #65 and IDEC Sport’s #28 ORECA, which started a lap down from pit lane, finished up fifth and sixth and completed the LMP2 podium.
Elsewhere, ELMS debutant Racing Spirit of Leman claimed the LMP3 honours, after a hard-fought battle with Inter Europol and COOL Racing’s challengers in the final hour of the race. In the end, it came down to a battle between Antione Doquin in the #31 Racing Spirit Ligier and Marcos Siebert in the #17 COOL Racing example, the pair together on track dicing for the lead in the closing laps.
After a textbook defensive effort, Doquin took the win, with Siebert on his bumper as the pair crossed the line.
Inter Europol Competition, which was denied a strong finish with its #43 LMP2 entry due to a gearbox issue, claimed third in LMP3 with its #13 Ligier JS P320. Miguel Cristovao, Kai Askey and Wyatt Brichacek had a quiet but strong outing, climbing up the order all the way to the lead, but Brichacek couldn’t hold on and fell to third towards the end of the race, finishing 13 seconds adrift.
Just off the podium was the #11 Eurointernational Ligier JS P320 Nissan driven by Matthew Richard Bell and Adam Ali – a lap down on the winning car.
“It was the first race of the team in the ELMS,” commented Doquin. “We are happy to take the win – it’s a beautiful start of the season so let’s continue on that path and see where we land at the end of the championship.”
(Unfortunately, the result in LMP3 changed post-race, as the Racing Spirit of Leman team was handed a 105-second post-race time penalty for completing one of the required timed pit stops during a Full-Course Yellow period. The team dropped to third, meaning COOL Racing has been named the winner and Inter Europol has claimed second.)
The best of the two Duqueine M30 D08 Nissans – the #4 from DKR Engineering – ended up finishing a disappointing 10th, after an off from James Winslow ended up with the car spending time in the garage. The other D08, fielded by WTM by Rinaldi Racing, was eliminated from the race on Lap 1 in a multi-car incident at Turn 3, caused by Leonard Weiss spinning in the middle of the pack and being hit by the GMB Motorsport Aston Martin which went on the also have contact with the #72 TF Sport Aston Martin, #77 Proton Porsche and #81 DragonSpeed ORECA. It seems that the Duqueine had been collected by another car, causing the car to spin in the following corner.
GTE saw Proton Competition’s #16 Porsche 911 RSR 19 of Ryan Hardwick, Zach Robichon and Alessio Picariello take a commanding win over Formula Racing and the chasing pack. The trio didn’t put a foot wrong and led the majority of the race, crossing the line just ahead of Formula Racing’s Ferrari 488 GTE EVO.
It was a relatively comfortable outing for Hardwick and Robichon before Picariello was tasked with bringing the car home. Picariello didn’t enjoy a quiet final hour though, as he began struggling with grip levels.
“The first half of my stint was great, I was looking after the tyres, and I was being told not to push. But the last eight laps it was hard with the rear left, I thought I would get a puncture,” he admitted. “It was a bit edgy.”
In the end, Picariello managed to hold onto the lead, but had there been a couple of additional laps, he looked almost certain to be passed by Conrad Laursen in the Ferrari behind, who brought the gap down to under two seconds on the final lap.
The pole-sitting JMW Motorsport Ferrari ended up completing the podium, but the team will wonder what might have been had it not suffered an early drive-through penalty. It nevertheless was an encouraging performance from Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and at the end Jon Lancaster, in what was an incident-packed race for the GTE class, with multiple cars involved in significant on-track incidents.
The Iron Lynx Porsche came home fourth, ahead of the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari that claimed fifth.
GTE was entertaining, but it may have been a more engaging encounter had multiple cars not hit trouble. The #77 Proton Porsche and the #72 TF and #44 GMB Aston Martins retired as a result of damage from the Lap 1 incident, which saw all three cars blindsided by the spinning WTM Rinaldi Duqueine.
The #93 Proton Porsche also looked on course for a strong result, after an impressive opening stint from Michael Fassbender, before Martin Rump was later hit into a spin by an over-ambitious Jean-Baptiste Lahaye in the #35 Ultimate Ligier, causing a Full-Course Yellow period with just over an hour left.
Round 2 of the ELMS is set to take place on July 16th at Paul Ricard, following the cancellation of next month’s 4 Hours of Imola.
