ELMS – The Oak n°35 wins at Donington

The LMP2s hosted a race that was very poor in terms of competitors since only 13 cars took the start of the 6 Hours of Donington. With nine prototypes from the premier category of the discipline, the battle for victory was nevertheless contested and the latter ultimately went to the No. 35 Oak Racing Morgan-Nissan which was driven by Dimitri Enjalbert, Olivier Pla and Bertrand Baguette. The prototype of the French team regained the lead of the race following a penalty inflicted on the Oreca 03-Nissan of Thiriet by TDS Racing led by Mathias Beche and Pierre Thiriet. The winning crew of the first race of the season at Paul-Ricard certainly let a second consecutive success slip away by committing an infraction in the pit lane.

The podium is completed by the Oreca 03-Nissan from Murphy Prototypes of Brendon Hartley, Jody Firth and Warren Hughes. The Irish team finishes ahead of the Sébastien crew Loeb Racing composed of Stéphane Sarrazin, Nicolas Marroc and Nicolas Minassian. The #03 Oreca 19-Nissan lost time at the start of the race by being caught in a pile-up also involving the Pecom Racing Oreca 03-Nissan driven by Luis Perez-Companc, Pierre Kaffer and Soheil Ayari who still managed to complete the top five. The Argentine team took advantage of the problems of the No. 24 Morgan-Judd of Matthieu Lahaye and boss driver Jacques Nicolet, who received a penalty for an infraction in the pits before encountering gearbox problems. The Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan driven by Tom Kimber-Smith, Alex Brundle and Lucas Ordonez fell down the standings by losing 20 minutes in the pits at the end of the race.

La Ferrari JMW Motorsport's 458 Italia was the only GTE Pro entered at Donington. Jonny Cocker and Allan Simonsen, who came to replace James Walker at the last moment, took eighth place in the general classification ahead of the GTE Am where the Porsche 911 RSR (997) of Nicolas Armindo, Raymond Narac and Anthony Pons won ahead of the F458 of AF Corse (Perazzini-Cioci-Griffin).

Discover the report on the 6 Hours of Donington in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version for iPad, PC and Mac, and from Wednesday on newsstands.