FFSA GT: Van der Ende and Lessennes winners of the C1 at Ricard

By winning at night at Le Castellet for the C1 of the FFSA GT, Ricardo van der Ende and Benjamin Lessennes gave L'Espace Bienvenue its second victory of the season.

Published on 16/10/2022 à 07:58

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FFSA GT: Van der Ende and Lessennes winners of the C1 at Ricard

Ricardo van der Ende and Benjamin Lessennes won the C1 of the FFSA GT at Le Castellet © SRO / Patrick Hecq Photography

Winners of the first round of the 2022 Grand Final of the FFSAGT at the Circuit Paul Ricard with their BMW M4 GT4, Ricardo van der Ende and Benjamin Lessennes (L'Espace Bienvenue) are taking a big step towards the honorary title of vice-champions.

The Silver Cup polemen, Victor Weyrich and Romain Carton (Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 #74 – Racing Spirit of Léman), ont pris la deuxième place devant Stéphane Lémeret et Stéphane Tribaudini (Toyota GR Supra GT4 #30 – CMR).

Nicolas Cheers and Rudy Servol hoped to close the Pro-Am championship this Saturday evening, but a fairly distant position on the starting grid then a spin following contact sent theAlpine A110 GT4 #36 de CMR hors des points. Dans le même temps, Alban Varutti s’offrait une incroyable remontée en fin de course pour imposer la Porsche de l’équipe AVR-Avvatar.

With Julien Piguet, they came back to 11 points behind the Prost-Servol duo and everything seems possible before the very last race of the season.

If Jim Pla (Mercedes-AMG GT4 #16 – Akkodis ASP) had led the category at the start of the race ahead of Étienne Cheli (Toyota GR Supra GT4 #9 – CMR), these two cars lost several positions at the end of the race and the podium was finally completed by Sandro Perissoutti and Ronald Basso (Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 #92 – Racing Spirit of Léman) and the pair Grégory Guilvert-Grégory Curson Faessel (Audi R8 LMS GT4 #42 – Saintéloc Racing).

The victory of Michael Blanchemain and Christophe Hamon (Audi R8 LMS GT4 #69 – Team Fullmotorsport) in the Am Cup could well be decisive in the title race in this category. Knowing that their rivals Jean-Charles Rédélé and Laurent Coubard (Alpine A110 GT4 #76 – Bodemer Auto) finished in 4th place, the gap increased to 13 points before the decisive race.

By taking second place despite a spin, Kévin Jimenez and Florent Grizaud (Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 #72 – GPA Racing) confirmed their good first season in FFSA GT. After Spa, Aleksander Vaintrub and Stanislav Safronov (Mercedes-AMG GT4 #188 – NM Racing) climbed onto the podium for the second time.