FERRARI TORTOISE BEATS PORSCHE HARE IN GTE AM
The AF Corse Ferrari (above) shared by works driver Nicklas Nielsen, Emmanuel Collard and Francois Perrodo claimed a second class win of the season to extend their GTE Am points lead. They didn’t look like contenders for much of the race, but ended up prevailing by just under three seconds.
AF Corse owed its victory to a clean race and the right strategic calls, most significantly having bronze driver Perrodo in the 488 GTE Evo at the right time.
“We’re not sure how we won it,” said Nielsen, who completed a triple stint at the end to cement the victory. “We didn’t have the fastest car, but the team did a fantastic job on strategy. We weren’t the favourites before the race, but we took the maximum out of everything.”
The best of the Dempsey-proton Porsche 911 RSRS took a close second in the hands of Matt Campbell, Riccardo Pera and Christian Ried (below). The class pole winner had an up and down race, Ried leading initially before the car dropped down into the midfield with Pera prior to Campbell climbing aboard.
The TF Sport Aston squad claimed third with Jonny Adam, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc, 50s further back, after struggling in the rain. The Project 1 Porsche in which Egidio Perfetti had twice led early on ended up fourth after Laurents Horr struggled when the conditions were at their worst.
United Autosports made it three wins from the past three starts in its maiden season in the World Endurance Championship. Filipe Albuquerque, Paul di Resta and Phil Hanson led for the majority of the way and, even when they weren’t in front aboard their ORECA-GIBSON 07, they were clear favourites for victory.
There was a dramatic battle with the Tds-run Racing Team Nederland ORECA (below) that Giedo van der Garde propelled from the back of the prototype grid into the lead in just over 40 laps. Job van Uitert maintained the lead for 30 laps in the middle of the race but, said team boss Richard Dean, “you’ve got to know who you are racing”. And that wasn’t RTN, given that bronze-rated Frits van Eerd was never going to keep the car in contention.
Hanson had a brief tussle with Thomas Laurent in the Signatech car as he saved fuel in the penultimate hour.
Di Resta rejoined just ahead of the Frenchman, who was on tyres that were already up to temperature and braved it around the outside through Eau Rouge to take what was effectively the race lead. A lap later, di Resta put the United car back ahead. Five laps after that, Laurent was in the tyres at the fast right-hander before Blanchimont.
Di Resta had already taken the lead from van Eerd when Laurent, running just a couple of seconds behind, dived inside a GTE Am car while the RTN ORECA went around the outside. An unsighted van Eerd came across and tagged Laurent, sending him heavily into the barriers.
It was a racing incident on which the stewards took no action, though Laurent subsequently apologised, describing it as an “unforgivable mistake”. The retirement for the car Laurent shared with Andre Negrao and Pierre Ragues brought to an end an unbroken run of WEC finishes for Signatech stretching back to the Nurburgring in 2015. It also removed United’s last rival from the equation, though even Signatech reckoned it wouldn’t have won.
“Keeping the bigger picture in mind was key,” said Hanson. “I probably played it a bit too safe, but it was vital to stay out of trouble. It was a case of having one of those clean races, knowing we had the performance in the car and could dial it back a bit.”
Nicolas Lapierre propelled the Cool Racing ORECA into a distant second at the finish. The Frenchman was a lap down in the car shared with Alexandre Coigny and Antonin Borga. Van Eerd did enough in his one hour and 15 minutes in the car to give RTN its third podium of the season.
The top three were all on Michelin tyres. Best of the Goodyear runners was the Jota Sport ORECA driven by Anthony Davidson, Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez in fourth. The team looked to be in a strong position after it got silver driver Gonzalez through his driving time at the start of the race, but a tactical call to give Davidson intermediates backfired when the rain intensified.
The Jota-run Jackie Chan DC Racing entry, in which Ryan Cullen replaced Gabriel Aubry who failed a COVID-19 test (see Pit & Paddock), ended up a distant sixth after encountering brake problems.