AF Corse Beats IDEC to 4H Barcelona Victory

Photo: MPS Agency

AF Corse’s Pro-Am squad took a last-lap overall victory in the 4 Hours of Barcelona, with Matthieu Vaxiviere fighting his way past IDEC Sport’s Mathys Jaubert after a late safety car restart.

Vaxiviere, sharing the No. 83 Oreca 07 Gibson with Francois Perrodo and Alessio Rovera, ran fourth when the four-hour European Le Mans Series season opener returned to green flag racing with two laps remaining.

Armed with fresher tires, the Frenchman then passed both Vector Sport’s Pietro Fittipaldi and VDS Panis Racing driver Charles Milesi to climb up to second on the penultimate lap.

That brought him in striking distance of LMP2 debutant Jaubert, resuming a battle that had been raging before both cars had taken their final pitstops.

Crucially, Vaxiviere, who had brought the No. 83 machine into contention for overall victory with a storming drive in the final hour of the race, took fresh tires, which briefly forced him to relinquish second place and drop to fourth.

Not much later, however, both the No. 4 DKR Engineering Ginetta G61-LT-P325-Evo Toyota and Pipo Derani’s No. 47 CLX Motorsport Oreca stopped on track simultaneously, causing race control to declare the third and final virtual safety car of the race.

As per procedure, this subsequently converted into a full safety car that was removed with two laps to go, with Jaubert initially pulling a gap with a strong restart.

However, after Vaxiviere had dispatched Fittipaldi and Milesi, he rapidly closed down on the No. 18 Oreca and completed a race-winning overtake up the inside of Turn 7.

Notably, it marks the second time that an LMP2 Pro-Am entry has taken overall victory in the Barcelona opener after the TF Sport-operated Racing Team Turkey squad achieved a similar feat with Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Louis Deletraz in 2023.

IDEC, meanwhile, still took a class win and maximum championship points by finishing second with its debuting, Genesis Magma Racing-backed No. 18 Oreca driven by Jaubert, Jamie Chadwick and Daniel Juncadella.

After Juncadella had stormed into podium contention following the race’s first intervention, he handed the car over to Jaubert in second place after passing VDS Panis driver Esteban Masson into Turn 1.

That came moments before Leo Weiss became stranded in the Turn 14 gravel in the No. 12 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Duqueine D09 Toyota, requiring another virtual safety car.

As a result, Jaubert took the restart in second position but immediately pressured the then-leading No. 47 CLX Oreca driven by Derani.

The 20-year-old LMP2 debutant then used traffic to his advantage to pass Derani at Turn 13 with fifty minutes to go, maintaining his advantage until losing out to Vaxiviere on the final lap.

However, the second-place finish for the No. 18 car still resulted in debut ELMS podiums for all three drivers.

Milesi, Masson and Ollie Gray finished third overall in the No. 48 Oreca, ahead of the Vector Sport trio of Fittipaldi, Vlad Lomko and Ryan Cullen.

CLX Pure Rxcing completed the overall top five with its No. 37 Oreca piloted by Alex Malykin, Tristan Vautier and Tom Blomqvist.

Algarve Pro Racing’s pair of Orecas came home in sixth and seventh, with the No. 25 machine driven by Matthias Kaiser, Lorenzo Fluxa and Theo Pourchaire one spot clear of the Pro-Am-entered No. 20 Oreca.

That car, driven by Alex Quinn, Kriton Lentoudis and Olli Caldwell, finished second in class while the No. 29 TDS Racing Oreca completed the top three in the Pro-Am ranks.

That outcome came after a drama-filled contest in class that saw both AO by TF and DKR Engineering play significant roles, only to fall by the wayside.

Most notably, DKR’s No. 3 Oreca spent a chunk of the early running leading overall after Laurents Hoerr took the start, which was a consequence of Georgios Kolovos’ red flag during Saturday qualifying.

However, with the field compacted as a result of the first safety car, Kolovos plummeted down the order once taking over, while a drivethrough penalty for the contact with the No. 66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 caused the car to further fade.

That penalty was the third of its kind the team had been required to serve, with Hoerr earlier incurring two separate drivethroughs for both a jump start and overtaking outside track limits.

AO by TF, meanwhile, had its competitive run dashed late on when the No. 99 Oreca ground to a halt in the last hour with Louis Deletraz at the wheel, meaning the car was classified last in class.

CLX, Iron Dames Take Class Wins in LMP3, LMGT3

CLX Motorsport took the first ELMS victory for the new generation of LMP3 machinery in a Ligier 1-2-3, while Iron Dames defeated Kessel Racing to take a hard-fought LMGT3 win.

Adrien Closmenil, Paul Lanchere and Theodor Jensen came out on top aboard the No. 17 Ligier JS P325 Toyota after Closmenil passed Ultimate’s Matthieu Lahaye with just over an hour remaining.

The Frenchman subsequently remained ahead of RLR M Sport driver Gillian Henrion after the final restart, with Henrion, Michael Jensen and Nick Adcock finishing second.

As a result, CLX took the first series victory for the new breed of twin-turbocharged V6-powered LMP3 cars, which came in this year to replace the old, Nissan V8 machinery.

Inter Europol Competition completed the class podium with its No. 88 Ligier, piloted by Douwe Dedecker, Tim Creswick and Reece Gold.

Iron Dames, meanwhile, ended their LMGT3 win drought that dated back to Imola last year as Gatting fended off Kessel Racing’s Daniel Serra.

Although the No. 85 Porsche 911 GT3 R led effectively the entire contest after Celia Martin overtook polesitters Iron Lynx at the start, the team spent most of the race then locked in battle with the No. 63 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Fabian Schiller were only forced to capitulate when Hanafin encountered a throttle pedal spring failure with an hour to go.

In their place, the No. 57 Kessel Ferrari became the main challenger for the Iron Dames, with Serra going on to finish just 0.786 seconds behind Gatting’s No. 85 Porsche.

Proton Competition rounded out the class podium with the No. 60 Porsche driven by Claudio Schiavoni, Matteo Cressoni and Alessio Picariello.

RESULTS: 4 Hours of Barcelona