Colin Noble secured an impressively dominant victory in the first 55-minute Road to Le Mans race at the Circuit de La Sarthe for Nielsen Racing.
A Safety Car period three laps into the race shook up the order as many of the cars pitted, including Tony Wells in the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier.
When racing restarted the #7 Ligier was at the front of the field, with Noble building up a gap to keep the lead to the chequered flag.
In GT3 the #8 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Rory Pentinnen and Logan Sargeant came through to take the lead of the class after the Safety Car period, with Sargeant getting ahead of the #95 Oman Racing Aston Martin Vantage of Ahmed Al Harthy and then open up a gap to win the race by over six seconds.
At the start the #21 Muehlner Motorsport Duqueine of Ugo de Wilde got a better start, moving ahead of pole sitter Jean Glorieux in the #3 DKR Engineering Duqueine on the run into Dunlop.
Nicolas Leutwiler got a good start in the #2 Porsche from pole position but the Swiss driver was under immediate pressure from the #72 Team WRT Audi of Charles Weerts.
Weerts got ahead at the end of lap 1 to take the lead in GT3.
At the end of Lap 2 the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Ken Abe hit the barriers at pit entry, bringing out the Safety Car. The #83 racetivity Mercedes also headed to the pits with front right damage to the car.
Still under the Safety Car, Lap 4 saw most of the field head to the pits with the Safety Car withdrawn after the following lap.
At that point, the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier of Colin Noble led by 1 second ahead of Josh Skelton in the #37 Cool Racing Ligier.
The #95 Oman Racing Aston Martin of Ahmad Al Harthy moved into the lead of GT3, with the #72 Team WRT Audi of Jean-Denis Deletraz in second.
The #83 was given a stop-go penalty for causing contact at MP50 (the incident with the #51 Ferrari that brought out the Safety Car) – but the AMG as already out of the race!
Lap 6 and Noble was charging – leading Skelton by 3.4s with a gathering pack behind the Cool Racing driver.
In GT3 Al Harthy was also pulling clear with the #9 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Doriane Pin up to third in GT3, just 1.6s behind her teammate Logan Sargeant in the #8 Ferrari, Sargeant though was on the move too, and was by the Aston by Lap 9 ad able to pull away with Al Harthy holding a gap to Pin in third.
Colin Noble continued to extend his lead to 5 seconds on Lap 7 over Josh Skelton, with the #66 Rinaldi Racing Duqueine of Nicolas Varrone in a close third, the Rinaldi machine would take the slot by lap 10.
Matt Bell meanwhile was closing on the #37 Cool Racing Ligier in the sister #69 car for third, eventually passing his teammate for the final podium position.
There were incidents meanwhile for the #1 Duqueine and #73 TS Corse Duqueines and the #74 MV2S Racing Ligier before the final major incident of the 55 minute race as the leader began his last lap as the #11 WTM Powered by Phoenix spun in front of Guy Smith in the #26 United Autosports Ligier at the last corner, there was contact and both cars ended in the barriers.
At the Flag, Colin Noble took the win with Tony Wells in the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier. The #66 Rinaldi Racing Duqueine was second, 7.2 seconds behind, with the #69 Cool Racing Ligier in third.
Sargeant took the GT3 class win in the #8 Iron Lynx Ferrari, with the #95 Oman Racing Aston Martin in second and the #9 Iron Lynx/ Iron Dames Ferrari in third.
