The Welcome Space is a must in Nogaro!

The big BMW triumphed over the little Nogaro. Little expected on the Paul Armagnac circuit, L'Espace Bienvenue won the first race of the FFSA GT4 France season on Saturday.

Starting from pole, Ricardo Van der Ende quickly escaped and with a trouble-free pit stop, Benjamin Lessennes took over with a five-second lead. He managed his advantage calmly, until the last safety car. With the restart under control, he was able to enjoy the second success of the Espace Bienvenue in GT4, after a first victory at Magny-Cours in 2019.

He is ahead of Philippe Giauque and Morgan Moullin-Traffort on theAlpine from Mirage Racing. The duo made a superb comeback from 19th place, taking advantage of a car that got faster and faster as the laps went on. The crew also finished first in the Pro-Am category.

Third overall and second in Silver, Thomas Drouet and Paul Petit lost a position at a difficult end of the race.

Behind we find Nicolas Cheers and Christopher Campbell on theAlpine of the CMR team and the other Mirage Racing crew Rodolphe Wallgren and Vincent Beltoise, who are ahead of the reigning champions Grégory Guilvert and Fabien Michal, eighth.

Ninth, Robert Consani and Benjamin Lariche are the big losers in the refueling. Installed on the podium in the first relay, they found themselves in the peloton and lost a lot of time, which knocked them out of the top 5.

Author of a nice comeback and above the pack this weekend, Jim Pla received a penalty which ruined his race with Jean-Luc Beaubelique.

In Am, Christophe Hamon and Pascal Huteau won in the Audi R8 GT4 of Team Fullmotorsport.

The classification of the race.