LMS: ORECA Wins Silverstone, AMR Takes Title

Le Mans / ALMS

LMS: ORECA Wins Silverstone, AMR Takes Title

Hugues de Chaunac-led effort scores first win for self-built prototype, Speedy Sebah takes maiden P2 victory, Gigawave Aston and JMW Ferrari claim GT honors.

John Dagys | Posted September 13, 2009 Northamptonshire, (UK)

Team ORECA now sets its sights on the Petit Le Mans, where the French squad will go up against LMP1 powerhouse teams Audi, Peugeot and Acura. (LAT)

Team ORECA Matmut scored its first Le Mans Series LMP1 victory in over four years Sunday at Silverstone, in what turned out to not only be a race of raw speed but also conformity to the tightly controlled regulations.

Four cars from as many teams swapped the lead throughout the season-ending 1,000km marathon, culminating with a three-way battle for the win.

Olivier Panis and Nicolas Lapierre’s ORECA 01-AIM had the upper hand in the latter stages of the race, but lost the lead when forced to change the car’s front bodywork due to broken louvers. ACO regulations state a car cannot finish the race with damaged or missing pieces of bodywork, otherwise exclusions would apply.

The 30 seconds ORECA lost in the pits gave Speedy Racing Team Sebah’s Marcel Fassler the overall lead, en route to what appeared to be the Anglo-Swiss team’s breakthrough race with a double victory in P1 and LMP2. But Fassler’s Lola B08/60 Aston Martin was called into the pits with only 11 laps remaining to also fix its front louvers. This handed the lead, and eventual win back to the Hugues de Chaunac-led French squad.

“It was a very tough race,” Panis told Radio Le Mans after the 195-lap race. “The battle with Aston Martin and Fassler was tough. The race was very tough with a lot of traffic, but I think we did a very good job. I’m happy for the whole team.”

Panis crossed the line 51.760 seconds ahead of the Speedy Lola-Aston Martin of Fassler and co-drivers Andrea Belicchi and Nicolas Prost, which put in a stellar second half of the race, outshining the factory Aston Martin Racing machines. Yet Fassler was still somewhat disappointed with the result.

“I think it’s very frustrating because I think we could have won the race,” Fassler said. “We’re at least a winner in heart. We deserved the win, but that’s racing. There’s rules and you have to respect them. It’s disappointing, but I think we did a good job overall, and it was really just bad luck.”

Aston Martin Racing's Stefan Mucke, Jan Charouz and Tomas Enge scored their first LMP1 championship after an eventful 1,000km at Silverstone. (LAT)

The No. 007 Aston Martin Racing Lola of Stefan Mucke, Jan Charouz and Tomas Enge finished third after leading portions of the race, but lost ground during its final stop when the crew elected to change tires. It was still enough to give AMR and its trio of drivers the coveted P1 championship.

“Amazing! It’s a very good feeling," Charouz said. "We have worked hard all season and then it finally happened today and we won the championship. We had a conservative strategy and at one point it didn’t look like we would finish on the podium but we managed to finish third which was a great achievement as the opposition were very strong.”

Title rival Pescarolo Sport again suffered gearbox problems after a storming early drive from Jean-Christophe Boullion. The rapid Frenchman, who started dead last due to an accident in qualifying, was leading by the 52-minute mark and had clear control of the race until its costly trip to the garage for repairs. Either way, Boullion and co-driver Christophe Tinseau wouldn't have taken the championship, as Mucke, Charouz and Enge only needed a fifth place finish or better to take the crown.

Despite its heartbreaking result in P1, Speedy Racing Team Sebah didn’t walk away empty handed, as the Hugh Hayden-led squad picked up LMP2 honors for the first time. The team’s Lola B08/80 Judd of Xavier Pompidou, Jonny Kane and Ben Leuenberger benefited from the early retirement of class champions Quifel-ASM Team to cruise to a dominating four-lap victory.

The trio took over the lead early in the second hour when Olivier Pla’s pole-sitting Ginetta-Zytek 09S slowed on track with fuel pump failure. Pla and Miguel Amaral, who had the championship locked up heading into Sunday’s season-finale, recorded their first DNF of the year.

Tommy Erdos and Mike Newton came home in second, giving the RML Lola-Mazda team not only its first podium finish of the season, but also the car’s first race finish. Mazda enjoyed a double podium result with the OAK Racing Pescarolo-Mazda of Jacques Nicolet and Richard Hein finishing in third.

Class winners Pompidou, Kane and Leuenberger also claimed the Michelin Green X Challenge championship, giving the team team an automatic, and free, entry to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

In GT1, the Gigawave Motorsport Aston Martin DBR9 of Peter Kox and Ryan Sharp cruised to a one-lap victory over Laurent Groppi, Sebastien Dumez and Roland Berville’s Larbre Competition Saleen S7R, which led the opening two hours from the pole. After overcoming early weekend setbacks, the Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R came home in a solid third, two laps behind the winning Aston Martin.

Rob Bell and Gianmaria Bruni did everything they could to claim the GT2 title, but still wound up short. The JMW Motorsport Ferrari pair led the most laps, recorded the fastest lap and won the race, but lost the title by a single point to Team Felbermayr Proton’s Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz.

JMW's Rob Bell and Gimmi Bruni were so close, yet so far from the GT2 title. (LAT)

“It’s bitter-sweet to be honest because we won the race but our aim for the year was to win the championship,” said Bell, who was seeking an unprecedented third straight drivers’ title. “It was close, but we lost to a competitive team, a competitive factory and competitive tires. We’re all racing against each other, and it should be tight. It proved that it was never too tight.”

Lieb and Lietz had an almost unstoppable nine-point lead heading into Sunday, but their works-supported Porsche 911 GT3 RSR suffered early race engine problems, dropping them well out of points-scoring range. Not giving up, the duo mustered a seventh place result thanks to late-race attrition. It was enough to give them the title by the smallest of margins.

“What an unbelievable race!” Lieb said. “There were so many up and downs the whole season. We won a championship after three years of trying, it’s amazing. We knew we had a reliable car and had been running on five cylinders for nearly five hours. We were just flat-out trying to be as fast as we could. We had some luck that the Aston Martin and one of the Ferraris broke down and we were in the points. Unbelievable, I don’t know what to say.”

Spyker Squadron showed that their Nurburgring result wasn’t a fluke, as Tom Coronel and Jarek Janis again finished second, ahead of the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche of early race leader Patrick Pilet and co-driver Raymond Narac in third.

RACE RESULTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Dagys

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