ELMS Six Hours of Le Castellet an Exciting Season Opener

The European Le Mans series held its first race of the season, the Six Hours of Castellet, and against all predictions the race was a tremendous success.

After the World Endurance Championship siphoned off the best teams and the P1 prototypes, not many people gave ELMS a chance to survive. However, 21 competitive cars showed up at the Paul Ricard circuit, and put on an entertaining race with a surprisingly tight finish.

The Thiriet TDS Oreca-Nissan won the P2 class by a lap, and the Loeb Racing Oreca-Nissan, in its first race, captured second handily. The fight for third came down to the wire as the Status GP Lola-Judd fought worn tires to finish just nine seconds ahead of the Greaves Zytek-Nissan. Had the race been a few minutes longer, the result might have reversed.

The Thiriet TDS Oreca Nissan did almost everything right. The team saved 1:30 over the first six pit stops compared to its rivals; this added up to almost a lap- advantage just through precision pit work. The car pitted for a final splash of fuel on lap 176; then race control called it back on lap 182 to repair its front bodywork—apparently some essential louvers were broken. Despite the extra stop the #46 Thiriet TDS Racing Oreca Nissan won the race by a lap.  

The Sebastien Loeb Racing Oreca-Nissan which finished second was a brand new car run by a brand new team—they hadn’t had the car long enough to do proper testing and still beat the rest of the P2 field.

[etssp 560]The battle for third provided extra entertainment at the end of the race. The Greaves Motorsports Zytek-Nissan was solidly in second when a two-minute penalty for a pit lane violation—refueling crew not wearing proper safety gear, a repeated offense, apparently—dropped the car to fourth on lap 146.

Alex Brundle, at the wheel of the Greaves Zytek, spent the rest of the race chasing Alexander Simms on the Status GP Lola-Judd. Brundle had fresher tires; Simms had a lap’s advantage with less than an hour to run.

Brundle pushed hard, cutting the lead in half in the next ten laps, cutting it to 21 seconds by lap 183, and finally to nine scant seconds by lap 189.

In GT-Pro the JMW Ferrari took the lead in the final minutes when the JMB Ferrari pitted for a splash of fuel. Jonny Cocker, in his first race in a year, managed to hold off Jaime Melo and still save enough fuel to finish a few car-lengths ahead.

This was an even closer fight than the battle for third in P2. Jaime Melo in the #83 JMB Racing Ferrari pitted for a splash of fuel with 9:15 to go. The JMB car was running for pure speed while its rival, the #66 JMW Motorsports Ferrari, was trying to stretch its fuel to the end, avoiding a last stop.

Johnny Cocker, who hadn’t had a steady ride since the American Le Mans Series team of Lord Drayson had folded at the end of 2011, was behind the wheel of the JMW Ferrari, facing a Ferrari factory driver. Despite the pressure, Cocker prevailed, holding off the charging JMB Ferrari through the final laps to win by fractions of a second.