Ultimate Cup Series Magny-Cours, round 2: Saturday summary

Small cars with a retro look (620 kilos of weight) powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine. With two qualifying sessions in the morning and a first race at 14:15 p.m., the public had time to discover this new category. The traditional single-seaters, GT cars and P3/P4 prototypes were also entitled to their turn on the track, first with a qualifying session in the morning, then a first race in the afternoon.

In category single-seatere, Konstantin Lachenauer did not disappoint as he once again established himself as king at the wheel of his Graff n°31. He won the first two races of the weekend, winning alone ahead of his teammate Adrien Chila (Graff n°39) in race 1, and Pierre-Albert Fusella (Graff n°10) in race 2. The Swiss driver accentuated a little more his lead in the championship, he who won all the provisional races of the season.

Return to category GT Sprint : la course 1 est remportée au bout de 18 tours par Milan Petelet (ABM), devant Simon Escalier et Maxime Mainguy. La jeunesse frappe encore en Ultimate Cup, Milan Petelet (18 ans) devançant des pilotes expérimentés. Il récidivera l’après-midi avec une nouvelle victoire au volant de sa Porsche 911 GT3 Cup numéro 72, cette fois devant Maxime Mainguy, toujours leader du championnat pilote dans cette catégorie. Ils se retrouveront dimanche matin pour la course 3.

Let's now talk about the Legend Car category: it replaces the Mitjet category (absent because it is present in Albi in FFSAGT) for this round made a strong impression. 21 competitors lined up on the starting line for race 1, won by Maxime Lieutenant (Elite Pro category, number 60) after 10 laps, ahead of Laurent Imbert (number 16) and David de Saeger (number 44). The cars in this new category will hit the track again on Sunday morning for races 2 and 3.

Finally, what would the Ultimate Cup be without the proto race? THE categories P3/P4/CN/EVO set off late Saturday afternoon for a 4-hour endurance race won by Team Virage and crew no. 88 (Alessandro Ghiretti, Miguel Cristovao and Julian Wagg). Unlike the first race weekend at Magny-Cours three weeks ago, the race was not disrupted by difficult weather conditions, and the 142 laps could be completed without incident. The #21 Ligier (DB Autosport) and its crew (Lionel Robert and Stéphane Panepinto) took second place in the race, and the #69 Cool Racing Ligier (Maurice Smith and Antoine Doquin) completed the third step of the podium.

Sunday will also be busy, with races 3 in the GT Sprint category and in Single-seaters, races 2 and 3 in the Legend Car category. GT racing Endurance will mark the end of the weekend, and the departure for Spain on November 12.