TDS Racing gets the ball rolling at Le Castellet

The Thiriet by TDS Racing had displayed its ambitions with the pole signed by Mathias Beche. Running alongside Pierre Thiriet, the Oreca 03-Nissan remained at the forefront to cross the finish line one lap ahead of the other Oreca 03 from Sébastein Loeb Racing, which was having its very first race. Nicolas Minassian, Stéphane Sarrazin and Nicolas Marroc thus comforted the owner of the eponymous team who came to attend the race after his disappointments at the Rally from Portugal. After taking the lead at the start of the event, Yelmer Buurman, Alexander Sims and Dean Stirling were content with the last step of the podium with the Lola B12/80 Coupé-Judd. The Status GP drivers took advantage of the two-minute penalty imposed at the end of the race on Alex Brundle, who shared the wheel of the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan with Tom Kimber-Smith and Lucas Ordonez. A Geaves Motorsport mechanic did not respect the regulations during the last refueling, provoking the wrath of the stewards.

La bagarre en GTE Pro a été plus disputée puisque Jonathan Cocker passe le drapeau à damier avec seulement une seconde d?avance sur la F458 de Jaime Melo (JMB Racing), offrant ainsi la victoire à son coéquipier James Walker et au JMW Motorsport. Marc Goossens et Maxime Soulet, polemen de la catégorie GTE Am avec la Porsche de Prospeed Compétition, s?imposent dans leur catégorie en prenant la 11e place du classement général et en terminant avec un tour d?avance sur l?autre 911 RSR d?IMSA Matmut performance by Anthony Pons, Nicolas Armindo and Raymond Narac. Phil Kleen, Alex Kapadia and John Hartshorne won the LMPC category with the Curtis Racing Technologies team, finishing in eighth position overall. Conversely, this weekend is to be forgotten for Boutsen Energy Racing, which only completed 111 laps out of the 189 completed with the FLM of Thomas Dagoneau, Massimo Vignali and Jean-Marc Merlin. The race was even more difficult for the Oreca 03 of Sébastien Buemi, Bastien Brière and Jack Clarke who was only able to complete 27 laps of the track.

Discover the report of the 6 Hours of Le Castellet produced by our special correspondent in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version and from Wednesday on newsstands.