AF Corse take effortless AsLMS Paul Ricard Race 2 win - Proton and Garage 59 McLaren take LMP2 and GT3 honours
The No.90 AF Corse Ferrari 499P completed the weekend race sweep in the Asian Le Mans Series (AsLMS) season opening weekend, in what essentially turned into a one-car race after turn one.
Proton Competition's No.11 LMP2 car converted pole into the class win, with the No.58 Garage 59 McLaren taking victory in the GT3 class.
As it happened
The race would start on a drying damp track with all teams opting to run on slick tyres. Drama started before the race even began as the No.30 Duqueine Team Oreca went slowly on the formation lap. Antti Rammo dragged the car to the pits, and it was pulled into the garage.
When the race went green, the pole-sitting No.90 AF Corse Ferrari got away clean, but behind them was complete chaos. In a similar vein to yesterday's race, the No.22 United Autosports Oreca was briefly alongside the No.47 Ferrari 499P and later tagged the Hypercar from behind.
The contact spun the No.47 and created a chain reaction which resulted in a lot of cars collecting damage. The No.55 AF Corse Oreca slammed into the No.47, effectively ending the race for both cars. The No.60 Garage 59 McLaren also suffered terminal damage and stopped on track.
The incident brought out the first Safety Car period, and the No.47 Ferrari and the No.55 Duqueine Team car were patched up and sent back on track before the Safety Car period concluded.
Quite a few teams took advantage of the Safety Car and peeled into the pits, especially amongst the GT3s. As the race returned to green, the No.90 led the Hypercars, the No.43 Inter Europol led in LMP2 and the GT3 field was headed by the Garage 59 McLaren.
The No.43 did not lead the LMP2s for long, as the No.11 Proton Competition car tagged the leader, spinning the yellow and green car around on the final turn.
The No.65 Mustang soon stopped on track after struggling with reliability issues in the first half an hour, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. Almost all GT3s made their pitstops during the VSC, some of them making their second stops to get closer to their mandatory minimum stops.
The VSC soon transitioned to a Safety Car, and the No.90 continued leading in Hypercar, the No.3 DKR Engineering machine on top in LMP2, with No.93 Dfyne Racing Lamborghini leading the GT3 class.
The Temerario struggled to keep up with its peers and lost out the lead to the No.58 Garage 59 McLaren and soon lost second place to the No.87 Winward Racing Mercedes.
Eight minutes into the second hour, the leading No.90 Ferrari made its first pit stop, with Yifei Ye hopping into the car. Soon, the LMP2s started making their scheduled pit stops as well.
The No.37 CLX Motorsport car slowly chipped away at the lead of the No.3 and got past the DKR Engineering Oreca for the lead with two and a half hours to go. The No.3 kept losing time and soon found itself defending from the No.11 Proton Competition for second in class.
Eventually Victor Martins, driving the No.11 got past the No.3 of Hugo Schwarze, shortly before many LMP2s, including them made their next pit stop.
Around the half-way mark, the battle between the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari of Peter Dempsey and the No.87 Winward Mercedes of Marvin Dienst for the lead was ongoing in GT3, with Dienst trying his best to get by.
At the same time a three-way battle for fourth in GT3 was ongoing, between the No.33 2seas Mercedes, the No.70 Blackthorn Aston Martin and the No.64 HRT Ford. Up at the very front, the No.90 Ferrari was comfortably leading the whole affair, essentially running its own race.
The No.47 Cetilar Ferrari, now in the hands of Nicola Lacorte, was running in third overall, one lap down, trying to make the best of the tough situation.
In GT3, the battle four fourth was still ongoing strong, a dozen minutes later, with traffic playing a major role. The No.62 Team Qatar Mercedes of Julian Hanses made the most of it, quickly finding itself in the battle and subsequently jumping all the way to third in quick succession, showing poise and composure alongside speed.
There was a brief rainfall at that point, with a number of cars having an increasing amount of problems navigating turns three to seven, with a couple of spins recorded and the use of escape roads seemingly mandatory, as temperatures cooled.
Amidst this ongoing situation, Martins in the No.11 Proton LMP2 continued his impressive rhythm and rapidly caught the No.37 CLX of Adrien Closmenil, getting past him to grab the class lead, also opening up a quick two second buffer gap.
Meanwhile, with the No.50 Ferrari already out of his way due to pitting, Dienst in the No.87 Mercedes was enjoying a decent GT3 lead, over the No.58 McLaren which was under investigation for not serving a 10-second penalty correctly.
Eventually they would receive another 10-second penalty for the infringmeent. The bulk of the class' action was still occuring in the multi-car battle for the mid-top 10 positions.
With around 80 minutes left, the penultimate scheduled pitstop round in the LMP2 class kicked off. The No.37 CLX was one of the first to pit, with Matthieu Vaxiviere taking over, the gap to first place having jumped up to more than 10 seconds beforehand.
After the cycle was over, the No.11 Proton was still in the lead, with Charles Milesi having a handy gap of over 10 seconds to the No.37 CLX which was second, as Malthe Jakobsen was a distant third in the No.25 APR.
In GT3 it was a Mercedes one-two, as the No.87 car led the No.62 one, with a gap of around five seconds between them, as the No.59 McLaren was in third. The latter was in a gray area in regards to whether they did serve their penalty or not, with the picture unclear and the team's manager summoned to race control.
This created tension and uncertainty in the class, with the Mercedes' running close to the limit, both cars needing to do a stint reset and hoping for a FCY and the McLaren filled to the end but in that troubled spot.
This meant that even the No.50 Ferrari in fourth, was in with a shot at winning. In LMP2 little changed however, even after the last pitstop cycle, except for a penalty to the No.25 APR for a collision, which cost them a chance at third.
With 11 minutes to go the No.62 Mercedes finally blinked and entered the pits and that, alongside two penalties, totalling 15 seconds for overtaking off-track, ended any hopes of a podium finish.
The No.87 Mercedes pitted too with seven minutes to go, handing the lead to the No.58 McLaren, with the team now appearing certain that any issues regarding the penalties were solved through conversations with race control.
After four hours though, there was only going to be one winner, as the No.90 AF Corse Ferrari in the hands of Nicklas Nielsen crossed the line in comfortable fashion to take back to back wins at Paul Ricard. The No.47 Cetilar Ferrari followed home in second and a almost a lap down.
In LMP2, Milesi took the chequered flag to win in the No.11 Proton, meaning the team converted pole position to victory, with the No.37 CLX in second and the No.22 United Autosports in third.
Finally in GT3, the No.58 Garage 59 McLaren did cross the line in first, winning the class, with the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari in second and the No.87 Winward Mercedes in third.
However it was a short-lived podium for the latter, as two penalties totalling 15 seconds for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, meaning third fell to the hands of the No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
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