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🏁 Pole Position and Encouraging Signals for Duqueine Team in Barcelona
The 2025 ELMS season opened with high hopes and strong performance for Duqueine Team. With a refreshed driver lineup and the desire to build on solid winter testing, the French squad impressed in Barcelona with a remarkable pole position and competitive race pace.
🚀 A New Campaign Fueled by Ambition and Preparation
With careful off-season work and well-measured goals for this new campaign, Duqueine Team arrived in Spain ready to assess its progress. The new trio of Reshad De Gerus, Francesco Simonazzi, and Roy Nissany quickly found their rhythm during the free practice sessions.
🏆 Stunning Pole for Reshad De Gerus on His Return
Qualifying on Saturday saw Reshad De Gerus pull off a sensational lap to earn pole position in the Oreca 07 #30. It was a standout performance that brought Duqueine Team its first pole in ELMS since Portimão 2018. For De Gerus, it was a triumphant return to the team.
💪 Solid Race Performance from the Entire Lineup
The race started strongly with Francesco Simonazzi, making his ELMS debut, keeping the lead into Turn 1 and showing great composure throughout his stint.
Next in was Roy Nissany, also new to this level, who held position with the front-running pack, further confirming the car’s competitive pace. At the halfway mark, the Oreca 07 #30 was sitting in P4, and it remained in P5 going into the third hour.
⚙️ Mechanical Misfortune Ends a Promising Run
Back in the car for the final push, Reshad De Gerus was unable to fully unleash his speed due to a gearbox issue, which sadly forced the team to retire from the race. A frustrating end, but the performance across the weekend laid down solid foundations for the season ahead.
🇫🇷 Next Stop: Paul Ricard on May 4th
With momentum and positive takeaways from Barcelona, Duqueine Team now turns its focus to the Paul Ricard round on May 4th. The crew has proven they can fight at the front, and the team will be eager to convert pace into points in the south of France.
Francesco SIMONAZZI :
The weekend was quite solid from Friday onwards, where we were close to our rivals. My race pace in practice was encouraging, as was Roy’s, while we focused on preparing the car for qualifying. In the race, I struggled a bit with the second set of tyres, but I managed to stay in touch with the others. Overall, I’m satisfied with the performance, the way we worked together, and how we adapted to the championship.
Roy NISSANY :
It was a personally interesting first weekend for my debut race in Endurance. I identified the areas where I need to improve and develop. I know I can do it. It’ll take some time, but I’ll make great progress. In terms of the car and the team, I’m really pleased with what we achieved during the Prologue, in qualifying, and in the race. Technical issues are part of racing — they can affect our rivals later in the season too.
Reshad DE GERUS :
We showed strong performance in Barcelona. We had high hopes for the race after Saturday’s pole position, but I had a gearbox issue right at the start of my stint. Things got worse until we had to retire. It’s a bitter feeling, but overall, the weekend is still positive thanks to the team’s great work. We’ll keep working to be faster at Paul Ricard.
Jean-Karl VERNAY :
It’s promising. We can’t be happy with how it ended, but we were very strong, working hard from the Prologue onwards. That paid off in qualifying with a fantastic pole position and a new record. The race was solid — Francesco showed great pace and did an excellent job as a rookie. The same goes for Roy. They both need time to learn. We also know what we need to improve as a team — making fewer small mistakes to move forward and become true contenders for victory.
