Round two of the 2022 Le Mans Cup takes the drivers and teams in LMP3 and GT3 to the Autodromo Enzo E Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy, a track near and dear to the hearts of the Ferrari faithful, the "Tifosi". No doubt, those fans will be cheering for all Ferrari GT3 and GT teams this weekend in another doubleheader for Le Mans Cup and the European Le Mans Series. We start, as usual, with the undercard event, the hour and 50 minute Le Mans Cup race. 40 cars are on the grid. The very first race of the Le Mans Cup took place six years ago to this very day, on May 14th, 2016. Kasper Jensen racing the #55 GMB Motorsports Honda NSX GT3, this is a track on his bucket list. e has had a wonderful experience so far.
Stephen Pattrick in the Bullitt Racing Aston Martin shares the same sentiment. He is grateful for this opportunity. Germany's Lars Kern driving in LMP3 for Haegeli by T2 Racing is likewise excited for this event and knows the circuit has many mid speed corners for which technique is an asset. Kern is glad to see a very flowing track on the calendar where risks can be taken but not to the point where the risks are over the top. Imola suits the LMP3 cars well. Leonard Weiss is competing in his first race at Imola. The challenge makes it fun but it is not the easiest track to master either. Andrea Montermini started 20 Formula 1 races.
He will now show us the ins and outs of his race car in the Le Mans Cup, the V8 powered Ferrari 488 GT3. Aerodynamics are the most umprtant part from the front nose and the wing, the front splitter allowing for downforce. Entering the cockpit, the set is not movable, but you can adjust the pedals for each driver's height and the same for the tilting and telescoping steering wheel, a feature identical to production cars. Adjustable systems the driver can manipulate on the steering wheel include the traction control and the antilock braking system (ABS) which is a standard feature on all GT3 cars.
Montermini is honored to be driving a Ferrari. I can remember when the man drove a Ferrari 333SP open cockpit prototype, gosh, a quarter century ago and I think it was at the Sebring 12 Hour race if my long memory serves me right. We have the pleasure, the honor now, of doing a lap around Imola with the winner of the opening race, the most recent event on the calendar at Paul Ricard, Alexander Matschull. We start on the front straightaway which actually has a curve in it. Through Tamburello, full throttle, right and left.
Through the chicane, brake twice. Quick left and slower right before the hairpin. Late apex, in second gear. Come back to power early. Accelerate and shift up, slight brake, shift down to third gear through the left hander. Stay inside the white line before going downhill over the bump, quick right hand and slower left hander, and up into a third chicane, touching the curbs right and left. Accelerate again before coming to the final turn on the track. Touch the curb slightly, squirt on the accelerator and back to the front straightaway.
Another aspect of these races is fuel. Today we are going to hear from fuel supplier TotalEnergie and their Motorsport Technical Director, Romain Aubry. This is the second round where this newly developed and newly blended fuel is being supplied and to all the major ACO rules sports car championships. So, the FIA World Endurance Championship, the European Le Mans Series, and the Le Mans Cup. This is Excelium Racing 100 fuel and is 100% certified sustainable fuel. The proof seems to be in the pudding as the new fuel is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65% or so. 30,000 liters of fuel in total for the Michelin Le Mans Cup equating to 150 barrels of petrol at 200 liters each.
30,000 liters = 7,925 gallons in total
200 liters per barrel = 52.8 gallons per barrel (nearly 53 gallons)
Two technicians deliver the barrels to the teams on forklifts. These folks know the teams and have been working with the Le Mans Cup since 2018. Artur and Ludovic. They have been working with Le Mans Cup now since 2018, so for almost the last five years. It is time to go racing here in Imola. MV2S Racing and Jerome de Sadeleer have the pole position in LMP3 while in GT3 the top spot goes to Ebimotors in their home event and the award goes to lead driver Emmanuele Busnelli sharing alongside countryman Fabio Babini.
It is time to race. Perfect weather here in Imola for a motor race and it is go time! Green flag at Autodromo Enzo E Dino Ferrari! The pole man, Jerome de Sadeleer is the bloke who gets the jump, while Leonard Weiss did not get the start he wanted. Fabien Michal passes Weiss into the first braking zone on the circuit through Tamburello corner. There have already been positioned shuffled in GT3 as we head through the fabled Villeneuve chicane for the first time. Fabien Michal is in second as the field is stretching out nicely on the opening lap.
Now they climb out of Tosa and uphill to the Piratella corner. Trouble for Rob Hodes who has spun the #33 and the American driver has beached the #33 Team Virage Ligier in the gravel trap sharing the car this weekend once again with the Guatemalan driver Ian Rodriguez. Well, well, well. Lap one and the safety car is dispatched for obvious reasons as the marshals will do what they can to extricate Hodes from the gravel trap and get him back in the race. Haegeli by T2 Racing are going to get stymied. They thought they'd be able to take the start from the pit lane, but they are going to lose bucketloads more time with the safety car on track. Not the start that Lars Kern of Germany and his Swiss co-driver Pieder Decurtins were looking for.
Trouble too for Klaus Abbelen and Frikadelli Racing Team as car #30 needs a new nose. Abbelen was a couple rows ahead of Rob Hodes who we saw off the track earlier. Also in the lane is car #40, the Graff Racing Ligier JS P320 being shared by the Swiss duo of Louis Sanjuan and Theo Vaucher. Sanjuan in the car now. We now see the H24 hydrogen racer on track with Stephane Richelmi driving. Richelmi, the Monegasque, is driving the first laps ever for a hydrogen electric powered car. The car has been displayed and has made qualifying runs. But this is the first time ever for a hydrogen powered car to race. This could very well be the way of the future in motorsport. I mean, we are seeing the semi-electric power now in IMSA GTP of course, too.
But the hydrogen racer was the first one to truly go in that direction for an endurance car. Green flag. Jerome de Sadeleer leads the motor race ahead of Fabien Michal and Leonard Weiss. Freddie Hunt is next in the queue a way back from the top three. A great long run from the start/finish line down to Tamburello. Leonard Weiss was thinking of diving to the inside of his rival but in the end, decided discretion is definitely the better part of valor. A battle for seventh spot in LMP3 through the double left hand turn at Rivazza. This is a battle between DKR Engineering, the #14 Duqueine and their driver Alexander Bukhantsov domiciled in the UAE, vs. the #77 Team Thor Ligier with Icelandic driver Audunn Gudmundsson at the wheel of it.
Bukhantsov sharing #14 with Australian James Winslow and the Team Thor entry pairs Gudmundsson with Michael Markussen of Denmark. These LMP3 cars hit V Max, maximum velocity, down the straightaway and into the Tamburello corner to begin another lap. Bukhantsov pulls out of the slipstream under braking and has the preferred line into Tamburello. Down the inside, a classic and neatly executed Imola pass. Gudmundsson gives it up for the time being, but he will be plotting anther move soon. I can guarantee it. Emmanuele Busnelli in the Ebimotors Porsche 911 GT3R. But he is being hotly challenged by Jens Moller in the GMB Racing Honda NSX GT3, car #44. Moller has a head of steam!
Down the inside into the corner, he makes a solid pass on Busnelli. No muss, no fuss. Just a decisive move to the inside. This yields a change of lead in GT3. These two chaps are having a little party, but they are about to have an uninvited guest as Stephen Pattrick, the Englishman, is sneaking up behind them aboard the #99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 he shares with Frenchman Theo Nouet once again in this race. Patrick has uncorked the fastest GT3 lap of this motor race so far and is closing up on the leaders. A good GT3 scrap I must say, and we have seen that with the GT3 format across a myriad of different championships in recent sports car racing history.
Another one of the GMB Honda NSX's is also in the vicinity. So, the GT3 scrum is getting tasty as we have a Captain Cook at it. Through the Piratella they go at the highest point on the circuit here at Imola sweeping down into Acqua Minerale. Moller, Busnelli, Pattrick, the top three. Past the schoolyard they go climbing up and over the Variante Alta. Trouble now for poor old Stephen Pattrick as he gets collected and spins off the road after contact with an LMP3 car! The LMP3 also spins off. That is the #31 AF Corse Ligier JS P320 with Greek driver Kriton Lendoudis at the controls. Lendoudis sharing the car with Portuguese driver Rui Aguas, a man we have seen in sports car racing before, mostly driving Ferrari GT cars.
Lendoudis just lost it into the Variante Alta. The battle for second in the overall is hot and heavy as Leonard Weiss barges his way past Fabien Michal! Michal is demoted and these two blokes have a long way to go to catch the leader. Michal sharing the car in this motor race with fellow Frenchman Adam Eteki even though CD Sport are a Spanish team and run the livery of the Spanish flag on their race car, the red and yellow. As these two exit Tamburello, Jerome de Sadeleer is headed for the Villeneuve corner. Yellow flags, local yellows at Tosa corner as Jonathan Brossard divebombs Andrew Ferguson and pays the price.
Ferguson in the blue and white #27 24-7 Motorsport Ligier he shares with fellow Briton Louis Hamilton-Smith tags the #6 ANS Motorsport Ligier and Brossard goes for a lazy spin. The Swiss driver sharing alongside Frenchman Nicholas Schatz. In that spin, somehow or other, Brossard's engine has gone bang. Race Director Edoardo Freitas on the radio. "Leader to slow down. Safety car is on track." This is the second safety car scramble and Full Course Yellow of the race but too early yet for pit stops to happen. Teams still have to play strategy here.
The fans enjoy the shade of trees around the circuit or umbrellas on a hot Italian afternoon. Safety Car in this lap and Jerome de Sadeleer continues to lead the motor race. Jerome de Sadeleer tries to eke out a gap over Leonard Weiss but has spun right in the middle of the road! Criminy! Leonard Weiss cannot avoid de Sadeleer and, wham! The two come together and Weiss rotates as well! Vigorous waving of yellow flags by the marshals and now CD Sport find themselves in the lead of this motor race. Full Course Yellow, again. What do I always say? Yellows breed yellows.
Leonard Weiss has backed the #11 WTM Racing car into the fence and Jerome de Sadeleer is crawling into the pit lane with smoke pouring off of it. Game over for WTM just before the halfway mark. Safety Car deployed. Too much power on the throttle as de Sadeleer loops the car and Leonard Weiss cannot avoid him. The two cars leadinjg the motor race are out of it. More trouble, look, as Jacques Wolff spins the second Swiss flagged entry for Racing Spirit of Leman, the #43 car he shares with Englishman Josh Skelton. More trouble as Kriton Lendoudis has another incident, as if he needed it! He exits the corner, straight on, can't find any way to stop the car, and... ker-runch!
Jerome de Sadeleer is stunned. He cannot believe it after starting from pole. Everyone hits the lane for service as we watch CD Sport who are also doing a driver change as will everyone else. Adam Eteki will take over the car from Fabien Michal. Bullitt Racing are in the lane and now Theo Nouet takes over the wheel of the Aston Martin from Stephen Patrick. New wheels and tires as now Mads Siljehaug takes the race lead for Reiter Engineering at the wheel of their #76 Ligier JS P320 he is sharing with Freddie Hunt.
They were fourth in the queue before the safety car. The pit crew for Reiter Engineering have now promoted Siljehaug, the Norwegian, to the lead of this motor race. He is now behind both the Emmanuele Busnelli driven Porsche 911 GT3R for Ebimotors and the H24 hydrogen powered prototype racer with Stephane Richelmi at the wheel of it. Siljehaug is trying everything and anything he knows to get through this lot of traffic. He sweeps past the Porsche into the Piratella. Adam Eteki in the #37 CD Sport Ligier has Malthe Jakobsen in the #69 Cool Racing Ligier right on his six. Maurice Smith started the #69 car in 15th place on the grid and now they are battling for a podium place! How about that!
Cars everywhere in the corner, and now, Max Lynn gets tagged and plows through the gravel trap! Max Lynn in the United Autosport car #2 was collected by Tommy Foster aboard the #15 RLR MSport entry. Max and Shaun Lynn, the father and son team, and the #53 sees Tommy Foster sharing alongside Martin Rich. Poor old Foster in 22nd spot is rallycrossing his way across the gravel trap! Well, well, well. When things go pear shaped here at Imola, they definitely do. Foster is without doubt in recovery mode after a king size off course excursion into the weeds.
Mercifully he returns to terra firma and continues in the race. Adam Eteki only three tenths ahead of Malthe Jakobsen now. Jakobsen is touted as the next driver in sports car racing to definitely be going places in the future. Will that be the case? We shall find out soon enough, I am sure. We see for the first time ever, Stephane Richelmi pitting to refuel the H24 hydrogen powered prototype, and this is the first time we have ever seen a hydrogen powered race car take on fuel. Fantastic. It appears the fuel bowser is a small cylinder storing the necessary amount of hydrogen to fill the tank. From 25th place in the overall, the #73 TS Corse Duqueine M30-D08 Nissan is off the track with what appears to be a mechanical issue.
This is the Indian driver Parth Ghorpade sharing with Pietro Peccenini of Italy. Full Course Yellow. Ghorpade is out of the race as is his co-driver and the TS Corse team. A blown motor is the reason for their retirement as the Nissan 5.6-liter V8 in the back of the Duqueine has cried, enough! Full Course Ywllow. Malthe Jakobsen, the 18-year-old Danish driver at the controls right now, with a very impressed co-driver. Mo Smith is that driver who says Jakobsen is an amazing driver and really nice kid raised by good parents, learning and improving as a race driver. Cool Racing has great engineering and leadership, and it is fun for the two to drive together.
Well, Jakobsen is truly proving himself on track as he is just six tenths of a second behind Adam Eteki. Jakobsen wants to make a move for second place. No dice through the traffic into Acqua Minerale. Yet another Full Course Yellow as car #72 is in strife. This is the sister Team Virage Ligier JS P320 Nissan for the all-French duo of Alexandre Yvon and Mathis Poulet. It is Mathis Poulet at the wheel of it. He is getting going but indulging in grass tracking. Mechanical woes for the car with the race already 3/4 run. It is nearly over.
Green flag and Mads Siljehaug continues to have his hands full with Adam Eteki. Eteki has fended off the challenge of Malthe Jakobsen and now has a chance to get by Siljehaug as well. Siljehaug under big pressure and Eteki takes the spot away and has the lead of the motor race in the waning moments. Eteki to second spot. Malthe Jakobsen now going for the attack on Mads Siljehaug into Tamburello. From 15th to second, Mo Smith and Malthe Jakobsen are in a podium place. Full Course Yellow displayed once again as the marshals are still having issues with moving the #72 entry, the Team Virage Ligier of Mathis Poulet.
We are ready to go back to green and a huge clump of cars are all bunched up. Colin Noble gets a good jump on the restart. He is bottled up behind Wayne Boyd. Noble aboard the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier he shares with Tony Wells. That is Wayne Boyd behind Noble, pardon me. Let me correct myself. Boyd sharing the #23 United Autosports Ligier alongside the American driver John Schauerman. Boyd, from England. Mads Siljehaug makes a pass on Wayne Boyd as we speak. We are surely into the waning moments here at Imola.
45 laps now completed. 137 and a quarter miles. Siljehaug runs out of road and goes offline into the dust. This is on the run down to Tosa. Good news and bad news at the same moment for United Autosport. Wayne Boyd does indeed make the pass after Siljehaug goes off the road, but at the very same time we can see Andy Meyrick spins after a puncture on the left rear tire. Ten minutes left in the race and poor old Meyrick has beached the #32 United Autosports Ligier in the gravel trap, the car he is now sharing with Brazilian Daniel Schneider. We saw Kay van Berlo in this car at the previous event at Paul Ricard in the south of France.
Meyrick has cut down a left rear Michelin tire skittering through the chicane. He is not home and hosed as the left rear tire lets go and the Brit is beached in the gravel at Villeneuve corner. The lead battle is now well and truly on through Rivazza with under ten minutes of the race left. Adam Eteki vs. Malthe Jakobsen. Jakobesen giving Eteki a real run for his money after qualifying 15th while Eteki and co-driver Fabien Michal qualified in third place. We may see a safety car as Meyrick's Ligier is still stranded at Villeneuve corner.
The radio call confirms it. We are under Full Course Yellow here at Imola in the closing moments. No overtaking and maintain a constant speed of 80 kilometer an hour, 50 miles an hour. Cool Racing seem disappointed in the call to go to Full Course Yellow conditions. The green flag is back out and we have just a shade over five minutes of the race remaining. Eteki is eking out a margin over Malthe Jakobsen as the race is coming to a close. Jakobsen does indulge in a wee bit of rallycross across the gravel and so this will allow Eteki to pull away.
Three minutes to go. He passes the H24 hydrogen race car. That car still runs reliably. Yes. It has an electric motor, but it has a lot of plumbing all across the engine bay since water is the byproduct of the hydrogen fuel of course. The checkered flag waves! CD Sport are not home and hosed yet. They may look as if they are going to handily win the race. But they have been assessed a pit stop penalty by the stewards. This is a twist in the tale. Eteki and Michal are first on the road but with the penalty, they get demoted. Mo Smith and Malthe Jakobsen are your overall winners here at Imola! Wow! Have you ever? No, I've never!
Overall/LMP3: #69 Jakobsen/Smith Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan
GT3: #44 Birch/Moller GMB Motorsport Honda NSX Evo22
So, GMB Motorsport take the GT3 victory quite unnoticed after that shemozzle in LMP3. Gustav Birch and Jens Moller the winning drivers. 53 laps covered in total, 162 miles. CD Sport demoted to sixth place. GMB, Bullitt, and Ebimotors are top three in GT3. Three brands on the podium. Honda, Aston Martin, and Porsche. Mo Smith and Malthe Jakobsen win it, Second place goes to Wayne Boyd and John Schauermann, and in third place, the #22 United Autosport Ligier for the Australian duo of Andres Latorre and Garnet Patterson.
Arriva derci from Imola, the first of two Le Mans Cup races in Italy in 2022. Next up, speaking of two races, it is a doubleheader at Le Mans, at Circuit de la Sarthe in support of the big race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Two 55 minute races coming up. Join us at the greatest motor racing circuit in the world in Le Mans, France. Arriva derci for now, everybody. Bye bye. Take care.
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