Despite the rain under which the start of this 10th round of the season was given, Filipe Albuquerque put several lengths between him and his pursuers from the take-off. Already the day before, the Portuguese had impressed in qualifying to take pole position. “The car was great” he confessed to us after savoring his performance. Having made a mistake on Saturday and last of the DPi at the start, Sébastien Bourdais had gone up like clockwork and quickly climbed to second place. The conditions trapped the first competitors, in particular Steven Thomas at the wheel of the Oreca 07 n°11 of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports which was going to get into the gravel while trying to get back on the track in the right direction.
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Championship leader Meyer Shank Racing wasted a lot of time in the first wave of pit stops under Full Course Yellow to make major suspension and rear wing setup changes. On the restart, Bourdais got the better of Ricky Taylor, now installed in the No. 10 WTR Acura DPi, but Richard Westbrook surged from fifth place to take the lead! The JDC-Miller MotorSports team had indeed tried the bet on rain tires and the pouring rain had allowed the Englishman to survive in these conditions. His pursuers ended up putting on these tires too, but emerged a little less than a lap behind the leader, and even behind the first LM P2s.
Duel entre Wayne Taylor Racing et Meyer Shank Racing
This significant advantage was reset by a second Full Course Yellow, due to debris on the track. The weather having calmed down, the protagonists put on Slicks. In LM P3, poleman Malthe Jakobsen (Sean Creech Motorsport) got out at the start of the last hour of the race and triggered another neutralization. This would reshuffle the cards. Tristan Vautier entered the pits in the lead, but a bad stop by JDC-Miller MotorSports allowed the two Acuras to pass. Oliver Jarvis and Filipe Albuquerque met for a final duel in the last half hour. In this important battle both for the victory of the day and for the championship, the Portuguese took out a new class maneuver from his repertoire. In GT traffic, the driver of the Acura in Konica Minolta colors chose the less obvious and more risky path. While Jarvis bypassed a laggard on the right, Albuquerque rushed in on the left, two wheels in the grass, to find himself in the best position at the next bend and take the lead!
The last ten minutes were marked by the spectacular accident of Oliver Jarvis in traffic. On the defense to contain the returning Cadillac of Earl Bamber, the Briton entered too quickly into a right-hander and lost control in the grass, hitting the wall on the other side of the track. The front right of the Acura was destroyed, but the prototype could stay on the track and the driver continued. The event ended in a new Full Course Yellow and the n°10 Wayne Taylor Racing offered an important victory in its duel for the title with the n°60 Meyer Shank Racing, which will be decided at Petit Le Mans, October 1.
In the LM P2 category, after having spent the majority of the race in the lead, Louis Delétraz (Tower Motorsport n°8) finally lost to Ryan Dalziel for a victory for the Oreca n°18 of Era Motorsport. Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson won in LM P3 with the #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320.
On the Grand Touring side, Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth won with the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 ahead of Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche. Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor completed the podium with the #3 Corvette C8.R. The Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward and Philip Ellis won the GTD class.
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