Stéphane Richelmi held off a hard-charging Maxime Martin in the #3 Audi R8 during the second half of the first Qualifying Race of the season to claim victory for WRT and his teammate Stéphane Ortelli. The Audi domination may have continued in French sun, the race however was full of thrills and spills.
The number of runners was unfortunately reduced from 19 to 18 before the race started, as the #1 WRT Audi couldn’t be repaired in time following Robin Frijns’ accident in Qualifying which damaged the suspension significantly. The crew attempted to use a spare car in the race but they were denied permission by the organisers.
An incident at turn 2 during on the first lap reduced the field size by a further three. Ortelli retained the lead going into the first corner, but Max Buhk’s #84 HTP Bentley had a tangle with the #6 Phoenix Audi of Markus Winkelhock going through the second turn which caused the pair to spin in the middle of the pack and collect a couple of runners who had nowhere to go.
The sister #83 HTP Bentley went off into the gravel where its race ended and the MRS Nissan of Craig Dolby was hit hard enough to force him to retire the car, Winkelhock’s Audi couldn’t continue either.
Also damaged in the incident was the #55 Attempto Racing McLaren 650s GT3 of Kevin Estre, but despite significant amounts of bodywork being ripped from the car, the Frenchman carried on.
Remarkably, the safety car was not called upon and the racing continued. Ortelli in the leading WRT Audi began to pull away from the trailing Brasil BMW of Dirk Müller and fellow teammate Frank Stippler in the #4 car.
As the pit-window approached Ortelli was in control, with much of action coming from further down the field. Buhk was setback by the tangle on lap 1, and struggled to fight his way through the pack, eventually breaking the top ten after ending up 13th stuck behind the #0 Brasil BMW for a considerable amount of laps.
Someone who did make a lot of moves was Nick Catsburg in the #88 Reiter Lamborghini Gallardo though, in just a couple of laps the Dutchman climbed from 10th on the grid to fourth and looked poised for a good result while fighting for positions with Estre’s McLaren. The car would almost shift the balance of power in the race in the closing stages however.
First to dive in as the race almost reached the halfway mark was Müller’s BMW from second spot to hand over to Maxime Martin who was immediately on the pace and capable of making up the gap to the lead after the cycle which was just over eight seconds.
‘I’m still getting to grips with this series, so we made a tactical choice in pitting a bit early and I think that was the right decision,’ said Müller.
When the pack was back in sync, Richelmi was aboard the lead WRT Audi, but with just a 1.8 second lead. To his credit, he fended off the BMW with what looked like relative ease, keeping it over a second until the final 15 minutes. Third at that point was James Nash in the #4 Audi who later suffered a puncture which demoted him to the back of the bunched up field.
‘I was a bit nervous before the start of my stint,’ admitted Richelmi after the race. ‘But I have a great team-mate and with a seven second lead I could relax a bit. I tried to manage the tyres until the end, which was not easy with Maxime right behind me. The intervention of the safety car did not help either. I hope we can continue like this in the Main Race.’
The safety car was deployed after Albert von thurn und Taxis went off into the gravel in a dangerous spot and needed to be recovered by the marshals. This bunched up the field, giving Maxime Martin every chance to further put the pressure on Richelmi and score a win for his new team. But on the restart Richelmi created a gap big enough to give him breathing room for the remaining 10 or so minutes.
Nash’s puncture handed third to Rob Bell’s Attempto McLaren briefly but he too had mechanical troubles which caused him to tumble down the order, leaving third spot to the #2 Audi of Christopher Mies and fourth to the Marco Seefried’s #333 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari which had a quiet but competitive showing.
Martin caught Richelmi on the final lap, but it was too little too late and the Frenchman’s storming drive was capped off by taking the win by half a second, much to the delight of the Belgian team.
The Pro Am class, despite being low on numbers was extremely well fought between the #77 GT Russian Team Mercedes of Bernd Schneider and Alexei Karachev – the eventual winners – and the #991 Fach Tech Auto Porsche.
Schneider managed to slalom through the field after getting in the car and take a commanding class lead seal the deal. ISR’s #75 Audi with Anders and Thomas Fjordbach were very solid and dominated the Silver Cup.
The main race starts tomorrow at 13:10 local time.
Stephen Kilbey
