V de V Endurance Series – Dijon Prenois: V de V Proto Endurance Challenge

The weather once again causes trouble for the teams when the cars arrive on the starting grid for the 3 Hours of the Challenge Endurance Proto, end point of the V de V meeting in Dijon. The rain has stopped, but the competitors set off with grooved tires. All except two of the four drivers of Team Palmyr, David Zollinger and his protégé Timoth Buret. When the lights went out, the track was still very tricky, Thomas Accary, the author of pole position, retained his leadership, but the Norma of the CD Sport team was very quickly threatened by the Tatuus Extrême Limite n°19 at the hands of the very fast Léo Roussel. The young driver, who started 16th, took control and led his boat until the first intervention of the safety car after only 15 minutes.

The rain is back and the organizer does not want to take any risks to help out the competitors stranded in the gravel traps. At this moment, Roussel and Accary are ahead of Zollinger (Norma n°1) and Buret (Norma n°2), themselves closely followed by Christophe Tardieu (Norma n°56) and the British Sarah Reader (Juno n°26). When the Safety Car fades after around ten minutes of neutralization, Zollinger and Buret do not pose a real threat to the leaders, but they become one in the 40th minute when the reigning champion takes control of the depends on Roussel. He is followed by Buret who, however, suffers a Drive Through causing him to drop to 5th position. Quickly, he returned to the race in the lead and the duettists of the Palmyr team irremediably widened the gap with their "slick" tires at a rate of 8 seconds per lap.

When the first refueling waltz comes, at the end of the first three quarters of an hour, Accary's Norma No. 30 is the first to rush into the pits to change tires and put on the appropriate rubber. It is imitated by the Wolf n°45 of Ivan Bellarosa, the Norma JRT n°56 of Tardieu, the Tatuus of Roussel... At the end of the first hour of racing, the prototypes n°1 and 2 which thanks to their bet on start have still not stopped, are therefore comfortably installed in the lead with a lap ahead of third place then occupied by the Norma of Marc-Antoine Danielou and Maxime Pialat.

Due to his performances since the start of the season, the latter is now categorized as "Elite", like Dannielou, and the crew must comply with 5 regulatory pit stops for this type of scheme. They thus took advantage of a second neutralization, after 1h40, to carry out an additional one, and crossed the second hour mark in the lead, ahead of the n°2 led by Christian Vaglio-Giors, the n°45 of Guglielmo Belotti decidedly unleashed , the No. 1 now driven by Philippe Mondolot and the No. 56 driven by Romain Vozniak.

The final straight before the finish is clear but the ranking is far from being established because all the drivers in the Top 5 (n°33, 2, 45, 1, 56) still have to make a final stop. The positions thus became clearer during the last half hour, with number 2 in the lead threatened by the Dannielou / Pialat duo. The residents of the CD Sport team are moving back on the leader at a rate of 2 to 3 seconds per lap. Behind, the podium is not fixed because the n°45 and n°56 have still not stopped. When the first stops at its stand, the second recovers 3rd place. And despite their pit-stop, Romain Vozniak and Christophe Tardieu ultimately retained third place on the podium with a short lead over Kevin Bole-Besançon / Inès Taittinger / Garry Findlay. The trio of the No. 32 of the CD Sport structure had to make four stops, the formation being made up of two “Elite” drivers and a Gentleman.

At the head of the race, Marc-Antoine Dannielou and Maxime Pialat were breathing when the n°2 made its final tire and driver changes 14 minutes from the finish. Not content with securing their second victory this season, they also increased their lead at the top of the championship. “An excellent operation,” confirms Marc-Antoine. “We started far on the grid and we had to prepare for our return to the front. During my relay the track was tricky, but I loved it, and Maxime took care of finishing the job. A great victory! »

The calculation is all the more in their favor as their direct rivals, Capillaire / Cavailhes / Gelin and Mondolot / Zollinger / Dagone are respectively 5th and 6th at the finish. 9th in the standings, finally, the trio Bruno Bazaud / Philippe Thirion / Jean-Lou Rihon won quite easily in Gentleman Driver ahead of the Ligier of the Petit family.