The Michelin Le Mans Cup stays in France for another race. This time, in the southern part of the country, the teams, cars, and drivers arrive at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, France. This race marks the halfway point in the 2023 season. A month after a memorable Road to Le Mans, we are set to get round three underway again, in the south of France. After two race weekends in GT3, the championship top five has a Porsche, an Aston Martin, another Porsche, a Ferrari, and a Honda all in it. British driver Timothy Creswick who is part of the #86 HCR with Caffeinesix, is enjoying being a part of a GT3 championship for the first time in his career.
By the way, HCR is the same as High Class Racing, so this is an organization sports car fans the world over are aware of. Creswick finds all these circuits to suit the GT3 cars well. The level is high and he knew where he wanted to be to further his career. Arnold Robin for Racing Spirit of Leman in the #10 Aston Martin says he and his team are still in the championship fight even though they had to do damage limitation at Le Mans the last time out. Trying to win is a big deal but so is being cautious and earning a large chunk of points since this is the halfway point in the 2023 season.
Team Virage leads in the LMP3 class with 29 points and their competition is extremely close. If you look at the points table for the top five, holy cow, there’s only nine points in it! Team Virage, the Polish team, they have the Spanish CD Sport team in hot pursuit. French driver for CD Sport Fabien Michal says that they are collecting points and enough of them to have reached second in the standings. The pole position at Le Mans was fantastic for our team. The competition level is impressive with more than 40 cars on the grid.
Fabien Michal says, “I have been looking for a competitive place to race, and I have found it thanks to the Michelin Le Mans Cup.” Michal is right. We have seen some very stout racing so far this season and no doubt that shall continue. Julien Gerbi agrees that the championship has created a fantastic ladder system for the young racers, the young kids who are getting right out of go karts or smaller single-seater open wheel cars. Gerbi started with his team in the Ligier Cup championship and has made the step up to Le Mans Cup and knows this is his and his teams’ opportunity to fight for the front. They went headfirst into this project believing in it and are bearing the fruits of their successes so far in 2023.
Let’s switch gears for a moment. Is anyone hungry? We switch over from the world of cars to the world of food, which is something anyone can be equally passionate about. Michelin starred chef Fabien Feret will show us what a gourmet dinner is all about, for the drivers and teams, on the eve of the race. The invitation to Hotel de Castellet for a gourmet dinner and a relaxing evening was sent in the mail, I am sure. Cooking and motor racing are similar in that they are both art. They are both passionate professions, with a constant quest for excellence.
Indeed! The conditions in both situations can be stressful and the desire is to excel always. Michelin Customer Racing Europe Director, Julien Vial explains why this special event with the dinner party as part of the race weekend was put together. The goal is to create an atmosphere around the race weekend for the Michelin Le Mans Cup. Racing is the serious part of the business and the dinner party, is an opportunity for drivers and teams to get together and unwind a little bit before the serious action on the track begins.
Oh, my goodness! Did I just see the dessert table? I’m there! We have chocolate cupcakes with icing (gateaux au chocolat), berry tarts, petit lemon cakes (petit gateaux aux citron). Wow. Those desserts are right up my alley. That is the only way you’d draw me away from racing action is with food. Alright! Don’t think about food! Now, it is time, the next afternoon, to go racing at Circuit Paul Ricard! On the pole in LMP3 it is Cool Racing and car #87. Adrien Chila will start the Ligier JS P320 Nissan and hand off later in the race to his Swiss co-driver Cedric Oltramare.
Starting at the front of GT3 it is Iron Lynx and Lamborghini with Japanese driver Hiroshi Hamaguchi sharing with Vincent Abril of Monaco. We are coming to the end of the formation lap and are ready to get underway at Paul Ricard. The temperature is sweltering, and the motor racing will be red hot as well. This massive field of LMP3 and GT3 cars is ready to take on everything Le Castellet will throw at them. Away we go! I never even saw the lights on the starting gantry flash, but it doesn’t matter. We’re racing at Le Castellet! Down the inside, someone is going for the lead. I could not catch which car was attempting to pass.
Now, watch the two red and yellow CD Sport cars on the second row of the grid. These are the cars liveried in the Spanish flag. Be cautious around the first turn. Please, tell me you know what to do at the first turn! It’s easy to make a mistake early doors as cars as off on the inside and as the GT3 pack gets underway it looks like we’ve got a spin at the back. There are four cars down at the first turn that have rotated. Oh dear. MV2S and CD Sport are beginning to race each other earnestly. More cars off to the inside. It is an Oklahoma land rush at the beginning down the straight, like a herd of wild mustangs across the prairie.
But, when these boys get to the first corner and jam on the brakes, that is when everyone becomes the cork in the bottle. Watch out for the brightly colored stripes on the outside of the circuit. They are extremely abrasive and are a substitute for gravel traps or paved runoff. That is paint that has tungsten in it, as far as I can remember, and it is abrasive as sandpaper doing the tires no good at all. Whoops! That’s an AF Corse Ferrari spun and facing the wrong way just before the first corner.
That is car #83, the Ferrari 296 GT3 shared by the French duo of veteran endurance racer Emmanuel Collard and countryman Charles-Henri Samani. Samani is at the wheel of it now. A local yellow just a minute into this hour and 50-minute race. Ah yes. The Race Director makes it official. Safety Car deployed. Safety Car deployed. Not surprising. M Racing are also off the road with the #68 M Racing Ligier JS P320 in LMP3. Portuguese driver Miguel Cristovao at the wheel of it, sharing the car this weekend with Sacha Lehmann of France.
A quick cleanup and we’re back to green flag racing five minutes in with an hour and 45 minutes to go. No damage to the cars. Green flag. Adrien Chila and Cool Racing leading the motor race in car #87. Big gaps opening in the field in LMP3 and that’s not a good sign. A poor restart means a driver permanently loses time they cannot get back and the effort will be like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill only for it to come back down and for the roller of the boulder to get squished. Team Thor running eighth in car #77, the Icelandic team with Icelandic driver Audunn Gudmundsson and Colin Noble of England sharing the car.
Right behind Gudmundsson is Oskar Bittar for Team Virage, the driver from Paraguay jn the #59 Team Virage Ligier sharing with Alessandro Bracalente of Italy. The #4 Nielsen Racing Duqueine M30-D08 Nissan tries the outside, but driver John Melsom, the American, he has his hands full, look wriggling all over the road! Melsom is forced to take evasive action and give the place back to avoid being penalized. Tony Wells runs fourth for Nielsen Racing and he is being harried by the #3 DKR Engineering car in the hands of Alexander Bukhantsov. Bukhantsov at the wheel of the #3 blue and orange DKR Engineering Duqueine he shares with James Winslow, from England. Bukhantsov racing under an Emirati license.
He is chasing through the Double Droite de Beauseilles, the long, never-ending right-hand corner where it is easy for anybody to make a mistake. Now, we move to find the GT3 battle hot and heavy. A good battle for fifth and sixth spot in GT3. Hiroshi Koizumi of Japan in the red #51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 is trying to pass the #55 Honda NSX GT3 of Danish driver Thomas Andersen. This is the all-Danish team GMB Motorsport. Andersen, sharing the first of their cars with co-driver Simon Birch, another Dane. 20 minutes now on the board and Arnold Robin is leading GT3 ahead of Gabriele Rindone in the Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini and Hiroshi Hamaguchi also in a Lamborghini. It is Leipert Motorsports vs. Iron Lynx.
Rindone from Luxembourg sharing the first of the two Leipert Motorsports Lambo’s with Finland’s Patrick Kujala. Oy yoy yoy! John Melsom is in trouble again, spinning off the road. He is facing the wrong way. Now, in this replay, in a battle for 12th place, let’s see if we can find out what happened to poor old John Melsom. Ah. James Sweetnam was a bit ambitious in trying to make a move aboard the #39 Graff Racing Ligier, and he tips Melsom into a spin. Sweetnam sharing that Graff Racing machine with Frenchman Paul Trojani this weekend.
Melsom got turned around and there was nothing he could do. Finally, Hiroshi Koizumi of Japan has passed Thomas Andersen of Denmark. The Ferrari passes the Honda. This is a move for sixth place. 25 minutes done and dusted and now, Tony Wells in the blue #7 Ligier JS P320 Nissan is under intense pressure from Julien Gerbi in the yellow and black Team Virage car. Gerbi, the Algerian driver, sharing with Frenchman Gilian Henrion. Down the inside into the right-hand turn, Gerbi makes a great move and Tony Wells knows discretion is the better part of valor, giving it up. Wells sharing with fellow Brit Josh Skelton.
Seven laps have been completed in the motor race, 25 miles. Yikes! A massive wriggle for Gabriele Rindone who we were just speaking about moments ago! The Luxembourg driver saves it! He is second in GT3. OK. We are ¼ of the way through this two-hour event. Gerhard Watzinger in the second Leipert Motorsports car also gets tipped into a spin. So, Leipert Motorsports are feeling a bit dizzy after two trips on the whirligig. Adrien Chila of France remains the race leader in LMP3 and in the overall. Chila even in traffic is easing away from the field.
Adrien Chila has a 3.8 second cushion over the second place #29 MV2S Racing Ligier driven by Matthias Luthen of Germany and sharing with Frenchman Emilien Carde. Luthen nearly four seconds behind, currently. More issues for Thomas Andersen in the #55 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 as well as he gets extremely loose and finds himself clattering over the blue paint! He has gobs of oversteer on that Honda NSX! Ride ‘em cowboy! Holy smokes! Who says racing drivers aren’t athletes? Hiroshi Koizumi, meanwhile, is all over the back of Alex Martin driving the #64 Team Parker Racing Porsche. Koizumi doing very well in the AF Corse Ferrari in his opening stint.
Into turn one, this is a replay of Wells taking sixth place away from Fabien Michal in the CD Sport entry. I take that back. Excuse me. That is Fabien Michal passing Tony Wells. I thought it was the other way around. Apologies for that. Julien Gerbi in the meantime has the #11 CD Sport entry, the sister car, right on his six. Frank Chappard of France and Shahan Sarkissian of Lebanon sharing the driving chores in that automobile. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow is deployed. 18 laps completed, 65 miles. The Full Course Yellow is for debris on the long, fast Mistral straight which would be a recipe for disaster.
The debris is from one of the Inter Europol LMP3 cars with contact on lap one for the #13 entry with British driver Ben Stone at the controls. Stone sharing with Spaniard Santiago Concepcion Serrano. Game over. It is the end of their race here at Paul Ricard. Some of this debris is being thrown up at high speed through Signes corner which again makes it calamity corner. Modern carbon fiber bodywork shreds into needle-like shards, more along the lines of razor blades. They can easily lacerate a tire, and this is why we are under Full Course Yellow.
The marshals working on cleanup at Signes corner which is a high commitment part of this track. 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow is now removed, and we are closing in on the halfway mark in the race. The pit window will open soon. There is a battle afoot for second, third, and fourth. Matthias Luthen vs. Julien Gerbi vs. Shahan Sarkissian. Luthen though is in trouble and dropping like a stone through the race order. The MV2S car that started on the front row for this motor race is forlornly pulling to the side of the road. More tales of misery and woe for Thomas Andersen! He spins, again!
Anderson to the pit lane. Fuel is going in the tank and the car will need new tires. That set of Michelin’s is square. They are completely flat spotted. Simon Birch is suited and booted ready for the driver change and to finish the race out. Fabien Michal is pressuring Alexander Bukhantsov for fourth place. Fabien Michal tries making a move to the inside but instead spins the car! That was asking too much of the tires under braking and another LMP3 has spun in front of him. That is the Graff Racing car #8 Ligier JS P320 of the Australian duo of George Nakas and Frasier Ross. Nakas at the wheel now, Ross, the former competitor in the Australian GT Championship, should finish the race today.
Full Course Yellow, again. Trouble too for the #9 Racing Spirit of Leman entry, the #9 of Christian Gisy part of the all-German duo in that car sharing with Ralf Kelleners. Gisy is back underway. Bear right at turn ten so the marshals can clean up the debris. Damage here, too, look, with just over an hour to go for Oscar Bittar in the #59 Team Virage Ligier. Will the Paraguayan driver be able to continue? The sister car is in the pit lane for fuel, tires, and a driver change. Julien Gerbi has finished his drive time for the day and hands over to Frenchman Gillian Henrion.
Race leader Adrien Chila must pit while the Full Course Yellow is out. Arnold Robin is our leader in GT3 comes in to hand over to Valentin Hasse-Clot (VHC). Ready to get back into the race for Cool Racing in car #87 is Swiss driver Cedric Oltramare. The battle is on for second in LMP3 and there goes Gillian Henrion straight by Franck Chappard in the second of the CD Sport Ligier’s, car #11 that Chappard took over the wheel of on the pit stop from Shahan Sarkissian. James Winslow also makes the pass aboard the #3 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30-D08.
Poor old Chappard has now lost two places. We have passed the halfway mark in this race and Josh Skelton is now right on Franck Chappard’s tail in a battle for fourth place. Josh Skelton clearly took his brave pills this morning before the race. Skelton, having taken the car over from Tony Wells, fires it up the inside into Signes corner! A move like that in Signes corner, one of the most daunting on this course, not for the faint of heart. We have another Full Course Yellow on the speedway. Bear right in turn one. 49 minutes and change remaining in the race.
Josh Skelton is pouring on the steam and catching James Winslow hand over fist. There are slower LMP3 and GT3 cars ahead. No dice. But, believe me, Skelton is not done yet. He tries an outside move and gets the pass made with little to no trouble. Meanwhile, the gap from first to second is a mere 4/10ths of a second between Gillian Henrion and Cedric Oltramare. This is going to leave him exposed on the Mistral straight to James Winslow. Up to Signes, and he has gone through. Virage now lead from Cool Racing as we are in the latter stages of round three of Le Mans Cup for 2023 and after this race we should indeed be halfway through the campaign.
It is all arms and elbows. We have four cars in a massive bunch going for the lead. Virage vs. Cool Racing vs. DKR Engineering vs. Nielsen Racing. 28 laps complete, 102 miles. Another new contender is the 360 Racing entry followed by CD Sport and Team Thor. 360 Racing, car #26 is Tommy Foster, the British driver sharing with fellow Brit Terrence Woodward in their Ligier JS P320 Nissan. They work their way through the GT3 traffic. Wonderful racing in both classes. The best battle on the road right now is for third place, for the final step on the podium, between James Winslow and Josh Skelton.
Colin Noble has made up two spots and is scrapping with Kiril Smal for CD Sport. He is closing fast on James Winslow and Josh Skelton. Tommy Foster, too, is in this fight. Smal and Noble both spin! Kiril Smal skittering through the sand on the side of the track. Kiril Smal, being ambitious rotates both of them. Synchronized spinning and these two blokes are in big, big trouble. They will lose places rapidly. Wayne Boyd for United Autosport and Franck Chappard make it through unscathed.
Less than half an hour to go and it is game over for the #7 Nielsen Racing car. The battle between James Winslow and Tommy Foster continues unabated. It appears the #7 has a loose left front wheel. The GT3 race still has its own moments as well. Brendon Leitch, the Australian, in the Lamborghini is giving England’s Scott Malvern in the Porsche all he can handle. This is Leipert Motorsports vs. Team Parker. The Kiwi cannot find a way by the Brit looking outside, inside, every which way possible.
Scott Malvern closing the door. Winslow is still in third place ahead of Foster. Two British drivers scrapping head-to-head. Foster tries to move on the inside. He gets it done. James Winslow is back on track and still fighting for it. He’s clearly a racer. 22 minutes remaining. He cannot keep the place by going off the road and needs to give it back. Using the old squeeze play, now the two are side by side down the frontstretch. Foster has the preferred line into turn one and has third spot for the time being. Colin Noble is in fifth not too far behind. A wriggle for Tommy Foster and Winslow is matching him step for step.
Colin Noble pops down the inside for fourth on James Winslow. Team Thor based in Iceland is still motoring. They started eighth and Noble is now fourth. Trouble and a Full Course Yellow as the #27 LMP3 car spins. That is Louis Hamilton-Smith sharing with Andrew Ferguson for 24-7 Motorsport in another Ligier. Full Course Yellow, again. Valentin Hasse-Clot leads GT3 in the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin. Oh dear. Hasse-Clot has stopped dead on the road! Just about 12 and a half minutes of racing to go.
He has it fired up again doing a Control, Alt, Delete. Patrick Kujala of Finland, the new GT3 leader, he is allowed to pass a car that is stationary on the circuit. This is a change for the GT3 lead and less than ten minutes now remain in the motor race. Green flag. Ten minutes to go. Gillian Henrion leads, for Team Virage. They won the opening race at Barcelona but had much less luck at Le Mans in the Road to Le Mans doubleheader. James Winslow and Colin Noble pick up their battle and will pick up a few more points. Noble sells the dummy on the inside into the last corner, turn 15 known as Pont. Trouble for the #48 Murphy Prototypes Duqueine M30 – D08 Nissan as Czech driver Dan Skocdopole spins. Pardon me. The Irish team has an all-new lineup for this event.
Today it is the all-British driver duo of Adrian Watt and Will Powell. A battle for third is on in GT3. Anders Fjordbach in the High Class Racing, HCR with CaffeineSix Porsche 911 GT3R vs. Vincent Abril in the Iron Lynx Lamborghini. Fjordbach had two podium finishes at Road to Le Mans last time out. The Lamborghini uses the tow and Vincent Abril makes the move. He is up to third place with just over two minutes remaining. Cool Racing has Cedric Oltramar under pressure from both Tommy Foster and Colin Noble. Final lap of the race. Gilian Henrion and Julien Gerbi win their second race of the year!
They won at Barcelona; they win at Paul Ricard. Leipert Motorsport claim the GT3 victory and the first win in Le Mans Cup for Lamborghini!
Overall/LMP3: #16 Gerbi/Henrion Team Virage Ligier JS P320 Nissan
GT3: #19 Kujala/Rindone Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2
Team Virage win by five seconds completing 51 laps, 171 and a half miles. Team Virage, Cool Racing, and Team Thor are your LMP3 podium finishers. Leipert Motorsport beat Racing Spirit of Leman and Iron Lynx in GT3. Red hot racing in sweltering heat in Le Castellet. That was a fabulous race and fun to watch! Post-race, 360 Racing received a ten second time penalty from the stewards. This promoted Team Thor to third with Audunn Gundmundsson and Colin Noble.
Gabriel Rindone from Luxembourg and Patrick Kujala of Finland pushed and pushed the whole race and they have won GT3! Two Lamborghini’s and an Aston Martin as the championship points get ever closer. It is a close battle for the title in GT3 with about five cars realistically still in the fight. Racing Spirit of Leman leading HCR with Caffeinesix and Leipert Motorsport. We’ll be back for another race in Le Mans Cup at Motorland Aragon in Spain, at the end of August. Join us in Spain for more action. Au revoir from France.
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