The 2014 version of the ‘Bentley Boys’, Guy Smith, Andy Meyrick and Stephen Kane, took their second Blancpain Endurance Series win in a row at Paul Ricard after three hours of nail-bitingly close racing into the dark with the polesitting #98 ART McLaren of Alvaro Parente, Gregoire Demoustier and Nicolas Lapierre.
The rolling start saw polesitter Parente leap into a considerable lead ahead of the rest of the pack – so much so that rivals were insisting it had been a jump start. The first couple of corners passed off relatively cleanly, but there was trouble back in the pack for Kevin Estre in the sister #99 McLaren. Starting last due to a pre-race engine change, he had been expected to charge through the field in the early laps but ended up suffering terminal right-rear corner damage due to contact with the #14 Emil Frey Jaguar (which would go on to finish the race – a significant milestone for this previously embattled team).
Third-place starter Katsumasa Chiyo wasted no time using the #35 Nissan’s straight-line speed to outdrag second-place starter Stef Dusseldorp in the #85 HTP Mercedes down the Mistral. Behind these two, Guy Smith was all over the back of Edward Sandstrom in the #26 Sainteloc Audi, and it wasn’t long before the 2003 Le Mans winner had moved up to fourth with a brave move around the outside of Signes.
At the front, Chiyo was keeping Parente more than honest – pegging the gap to the McLaren at 1.5 seconds, before closing up to just a few tenths at one point. “I had to be careful with the tyres,” Parente said when he got out. “Chiyo was quicker in the second and third sectors but I was quicker in the first. The car was tricky to drive with the tyre degradation – I was getting some understeer and oversteer at times.”
Sandstrom wasn’t having an easy time of it, dropping from fifth to ninth over the course of his stint, losing places to Marco Seefried in the #333 Ferrari, Buhk in the #84 Mercedes, Antoine Leclerc in the second Bentley and Andrea Rizzoli in the #90 Villorba Corse Ferrari. The early laps also saw the retirement with front-end damage of the fifth-on-the-grid #10 TDS Racing BMW in the hands of Eric Clement.
The #333 Ferrari’s challenge ended when Seefried had to pit with a suspension problem, and at the front the pressure relented somewhat from Parente as Chiyo’s tyres appeared to go off. It was a similar story for Dusseldorp in third place, which created an opportunity for Smith. “Chiyo went straight past me on the Mistral on the first lap, but I expected that as the Nissan is so fast in a straight line,” said the Dutchman. “After about 10 laps, the tyres started to give up, I made a slight mistake and the Bentley closed up – I was unlucky with a backmarker and he got past.”
That was the #7 into a podium position. After his stint, Smith told us: “When I race in the US with Dyson, Chris always starts, so Silverstone was the first race I’d started in a good few years! I was warned to be careful in the first corner here – everyone else was aggressive but cautious at the same time. I pretty much did my first full flyer on new tyres on lap one of the race and it was good. I could do the same times at end of the stint, whereas the Mercedes and Nissan were in trouble with their tyres.”
A slow pitstop for the #35 Nissan and a baulked pit entry for Parente’s McLaren saw the #7 Bentley (now with Meyrick at the wheel) emerge in second after the stops, just 6.3 seconds behind the ART car up ahead, now in the hands of Gregoire Demoustier. Luca Wolff was third in the #85 Mercedes started by Dusseldorp, with Harold Primat in the sister #84 car in fourth and Stephane Ortelli not far behind in the #26 Audi, going faster than Sandstrom had been in that car during the first stint.
Jerome D’Ambrosio was looking to make progress in the #8 Bentley, but there would be frustration for M-Sport as the car pulled to a halt on track with suspected transmission problems. Russian GT Academy winner Stanislav Aksenov then lost the lead of the Pro-Am class to a charging Nick Catsburg, who’d taken over the #12 TDS Racing car from starting driver Henry Hassid. Third in Pro-Am at this point was Andrea Rizzoli, who’d taken over the #90 from Gai.
Meyrick was clearly quicker than Demoustier in this stint, and as the sun started set he reeled in the McLaren with some nicely consistent laps. The pass for the lead was a robust move down the inside of the final right-hander on to the start-finish straight. “I had a good battle with the McLaren, it was strong where it needed to be and he defended well,” Meyrick said afterwards. And that move for the lead? “I planned it last week to be honest,” he laughed. “No, he drove really well, but I saw a chance there and just shut my eyes and went for the inside.”
Meanwhile, Catsburg seemed to sniff an overall podium, and began aggressively pursuing both Ortelli and Primat up ahead. The Audi was despatched on the Mistral, then Catsburg passed Primat with a do-or-die lunge through Signes. Three seconds now separated him from third-place Wolff.
Ortelli moved ahead of Primat before the second round of stops, and at this point Meyrick had built up a nine-second buffer over Demoustier behind. But a lightning fast stop from the ART crew saw Nicolas Lapierre (making his debut in a GT3 McLaren) emerge right on the tail of Bentley’s third driver Stephen Kane and setting up an ultra-close run to the finish in the final hour.
“Most of the fluctuations in my lead was traffic, it was hard and I made a few mistakes,” Kane admitted after the finish. “You have to go off-line to pass the traffic and then you get dirt on the tyres and make mistakes. But the Continental GT3 looks after its tyres immensely well and we kept the lead.”
Lapierre was refreshingly honest in his assessment of the pursuit: “I didn’t realise the Bentley was right in front of me, because when I took over we were about six seconds down so when the team leader told me the lights in front were the Bentley, I was quite surprised. It’s my first time in a GT car for some time and my first race in a McLaren and I took a while to get into it. As the temps dropped, we caught back up, but I’m not sharp enough in these cars in traffic at the moment and I need to work on it. But I think we are well prepared for Spa.”
Catsburg ran right up to the maximum driving time allowed in the #12 BMW, leaving Hassid to get back in for the last 50 minutes and take the TDS car home for its maiden Pro-Am class win. He came under some pressure from Francesco Castellaci in the #90 Ferrari, who was circulating a second a lap quicker at one point, but soon got the hurry up from the team. Hassid said “my team manager told me that the Ferrari was only four seconds behind so push, push,” he recalled. “So I pushed, and it’s just amazing for us. We had a lot of problems with a lot of things [in the earlier races] and this race was just clear.”
Catsburg added: “We’ve had a really strong car all weekend, I had some good fights with some of the pro cars. We have a strong line-up for Spa in the two cars so I’m looking forward to it. I would like to say a really big thank you to Henry, who may be 55, but is driving like he’s 25!” Castellaci held on for second in Pro-Am for Villorba, while third in the class went to the #35 Nissan of Chiyo, Aksenov and Faisca.
In third, fourth and fifth position overall, the #84 Mercedes of Nico Verdonck, #85 of Sergei Afanasiev and #26 Audi of Gregory Guilvert ran pretty much nose-to-tail for the duration of the final stint. Verdonck looked on course for a podium, but the two Mercs lost some time and swapped positions right at the end. Even Afanasiev wasn’t entirely sure what had happened post-race. “We were faster than him but it was hard to find a way past,” he said. “But I found somewhere, then he found somewhere too, then we swapped again! It was an amazing race, I can’t wait to see the on-board footage.”
Behind this confusion, Guilvert brought the #26 Audi home in fifth. His co-driver Ortelli was satisfied to be the leading Audi on a day when top speed counted for a lot. “We were second here in 2011 and we won here in 2012, but that’s all finished now with the Balance of Performance,” he told us. “Fifth is the best we could ever have done today. Edward [Sandstrom] did all he could, he fought but it was just the lack of power. He stayed P4, but he had to take a lot of risk to do it, then he could not stay there. It was the same for me as it was for Gregory [Guilvert] – the Mercedes were just a bit better and there was nothing we could do on the straights, then they slowed us up in the corners. So it was exciting and frustrating. I love the team, I love the car but we need power, torque and top end because we start to look stupid on the straight. Fifth place feels like a win for us today.”
The result at the top puts Smith, Meyrick and Kane at the top of the drivers’ points table heading into Spa 24, but the retirement for the #8 allowed ART to retain its lead in the teams’ standings. A very interesting and closely matched rivalry developing here ahead of the series’ headline event.
SE & PS
