The length of the Michelin Le Mans Cup races might have changed this season, the opening round at Le Castellet certainly provided plenty of action and drama for every single one of the 110 minutes and with controversy to provide the post-race cherry on the top!
The early part of the race saw the #11 WTM Racing Duqueine of Torsten Kratz make the most of starting at the front as the #29 MV2S Ligier of Jerome de Sadeleer and the #10 Ligier of Alexander Mattschull squabbled over second, with Charles Crews in the #17 IDEC Sport Ligier also get involved in the battle for the minor podium places.
A Full Course Yellow period early on to clear debris at T5 presented Mattschull with an opportunity at the restart to get ahead of de Sadeleer, but the places swapped back a few laps later just ahead of the pitstops.
After the pitstops the #10 Ligier of Tom Dillmann emerged behind the #11 Duqueine of Leo Weiss, with Dillmann quickly getting on to terms and passing Weiss for the position. The #29 MV2S Ligier had pitted one lap later and emerged from the pitlane just in front of Dillmann’s Ligier with Louis Rousset at the wheel. Dillmann swept past the leader at T3 just before the second FCY was declared to recover the #69 Cool Racing Ligier of Malthe Jakobsen, which had stopped on track between Turns 5 and 6, the Danish emerging star not even completing a single racing lap.
The restart saw Dillmann pull away from the chasing pack and open up a comfortable lead, which he held until the chequered flag was shown.
The #11 WTM Racing Duqueine faded away and was passed by the #17 IDEC Sport Ligier of Dino Lunardi and the #53 RLR MSport Ligier of Tommy Foster. Lunardi closed the gap to the #29 MV2S Ligier but had to settle for third place at the chequered flag.
Tom Dillmann in the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier took the chequered flag 18 seconds ahead of Louis Rousset in the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier, with Dino Lunardi’s IDEC Sport Ligier 3.4 seconds further back in third. Tommy Foster pushed Lunardi all the way to the line and missed a podium finish by just 0.7 seconds at the end of the 110-minute race.
However, the #17 Ligier was given a 16 second penalty after the race for overtaking car #11 during the Full Course Yellow procedure (Stewards Decision No20). This dropped the #17 IDEC Sport Ligier to 5th place and promoted the #53 RLR MSport Ligier of Tommy Foster and Martin Rich into 3rd place and the #11 WTM Racing Duqueine into 4th in the final classifications.
GMB Motorsport Claim 1-2 Finish in GT3 on MLMC Debut
The GT3 class saw the GMB Motorsport team take a 1-2 finish on their Michelin Le Mans Cup debut, the Danish team also claiming a historic victory with the first win anywhere in the world for the Honda NSX GT3.
Kristian Poulsen and Kasper Jensen brought the #55 Honda home, nearly a minute ahead of the pole sitting #44 Honda of Jens Moller and Gustav Birch after Moller was handed a drive through penalty for jumping the start, as did the #88 Honda of Lars Pedersen.
Third place went to the #61 AF Corse Ferrari of Gino Forgione, one place ahead of the #99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR of Stephen Pattrick and Théo Nouet.
This fourth place is an excellent result for the Spanish team as the Aston Martin Vantage was completely rebuilt following a collision with an LMP3 during testing earlier this week.
The next round of the 2022 Michelin Le Mans Cup will be held in Italy at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola on Saturday 14 May.
The result of the race was amended to reflect an as-yet unexplained error in flagging the end of the race – That saw multiple cars lose positions gained on track at the end of the race – including the #7 Nielsen Ligier and the #99 Bullitt Aston Martin.
