RLR MSport Come Out On Top In Barcelona Thriller

The race got off to a rocky start with the car starting in third spinning off in the first corner. Luckily the WTM Powered by Phoenix Duqueine of Thorsten Kratz was avoided by the entire field and was able to rejoin immediately, but in last position.

This left Cool Racing poleman Antoine Doquin and Phoenix’s Finn Gehrsitz, the two youngster that started on the front, to duke it out for the lead. The pair quickly opened up a gap to third-placed man Maurice Smith who had his mirrors full of a whole gaggle of cars fighting to stay with the American.

Meanwhile a very brave Nikki Leutwiller used a late lunge to wrestle the lead in GT3 from Rino Mastronardi as the GT3 got in amongst the slower LMP3’s early on. Mastronardi would regain the lead later as a terrific battle in the class raged all race.

As the lead pair extended their advantage to almost ten seconds the race suffered its first of a few interruptions as first Daniel Schneider spun and damaged his United Autosport Ligier and then Jon Brownson went off and got stuck in the gravel, bringing out the first safetycar.

As the DKR Duqueine was retrieved a few teams gambled on taking a longer pitstop, including team Virage, possibly setting themselves up for success later on.

As Doquin and Gehrsitz battled, another young driver proved to be the star of the opening hour as Donar Munding forcefully hauled the Black Falcon Ligier from his 18th starting spot all the way into the top three.

With the end of the first stint looming, another crash provided the teams with another tactical headache. This time it was Erwin Creed who spun the Mulner Motorsport Duqueine and hitting a concrete wall. This prompted a whole flurry of pit stops and suddenly bringing the Rinaldi Corse Duqueine to the fore.

It was not to last however as the team elected to switch Steven Parrow for Dominik Schwager too early, roling the dice tactically but now facing doing another driver change to make certain both drivers completed their minimum drive time.

And suddenly Gareth Grist, having taken over from Rob Hodes, emerged near front and following a pass for the lead over the Spirit of Leman Ligier, quickly stretching its legs. Team Virage’s strategy was helped by an overly ambitious move from Josh Skelton in the Erstwhile leading Cool Racing Car as it tried to move back to the front following the pitsstops, its challenge ending in the gravel trap.

It lead to another safety car at which a large number of cars seemed to ignore the red light at the end of the pitlane, complicating things even further for the teams and race control.

It mattered not to Gareth Grist as he pulled away from the now second placed Theo Chalal in the Spirit of Leman entry with Rob Bell in third.

By this point the most controversial part of the race ensued as the second Team Virage entry, a lap down, spent the better part of ten laps ignoring blue flags and defending its position from Matt Bell with gusto. It meant Bell could not get on to terms with Chalal and saw Grist fast disappearing in the distance. As Bell grew ever more frustrated the rest of the field, led by RLR Msport’s new signing Tommy Foster, closed up onto the tail of the Cool Racing driver before racecontrol intervened and forced Sascha Lehman into the pits for a stop and go.

Bell then quickly dispatched Chalal, followed by Foster and Colin Noble in the Nielsen Racing Ligier who had also closed right up.

The race had one twist left in it though as the final mandatory fuel stop with twenty minutes to go approached and as teams geared up for that, Michael Jensen beached his CD Sport LMP3 the #33 driver having been 8 seconds short on driving time and needing to complete a single lap to complete his required 50 minutes, his fumble came on the out lap, bringing out a Full Course Yellow.

With Nielsen Racing just finishing their stop, Team Virage made a cardinal error, not calling in the leader, Grist left to complete a full lap at FCY speed whilst the chasing pack, at that point 20 second behind, all pitted immediately, and as Grist came around after his slow lap, it was a nervy race against the watch, nervy enough that the team made an error, the stop four seconds short with the race going back to green midway through their stop – that would cost the team later, but even so as the Canadian emerged from pitlane the new leader, Tommy Foster in the #15 RLR MSport Ligier, came rumbling by with three minutes to go.

Foster then never blinked, even in heavy traffic and brought the RLR car home for an unlike but thoroughly deserved win ahead of an obviously disappointed Team Virage with United Autosports pairing Gerry Kraut and Scott Andrews finishing in third. That order would be reversed post-race after the short pit stop was penalised with a 36 second penalty

Michael Benham raved about his new teammate Tommy Foster: “To see him compete amongst these guys is amazing. He did all the right things. We were a bit lucky but it came to us and I’m so happy.”

Tommy Foster “It was a super hard race. It was hard to manage the tyres and the team made great calls during all the safetycars and full course yellows and I am super happy to win my first race.”

In the GT3 race Niki Leutwiler made sure the PzOberer Zurichsee Porsche was in the ideal position for Julien Andlauer to take over the wheel, he was passed by Rino Mastronardi after a spirited battle but took full advantage of the opportunity offered by traffic a little later and retook the lead.

As the chaos in the LMP3 class unfolded the Porsche specialist never looked back. The team duly bringing the car to the finish in first in class and tenth overall, 10 seconds ahead of the Iron Lynx Ferrari of Rino Mastronardi and Paolo Ruberti and the AF Corse Ferrari of Abe and Cressoni.

The #9 Iron Dames Ferrari was a non-starter with an undefined pre-race technical issue.