Promising weekend for the Oreca #30 DUQUEINE Team at the opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Circuit Paul Ricard.
It is in the Var, more precisely on the Castellet circuit, that the ELMS season started. The Paul Ricard first hosted the Prologue, which went well for the DUQUEINE Team and its #30 Oreca, with the second best time in Tuesday night's session.
During the first official tests, the Alesian team worked hard to find the best possible set up to make its LMP2 car perform well.
On Saturday afternoon, the young man from Reunion, Reshad (De Gerus), took part in his first endurance qualifying session. He was very fast but unfortunately a red flag prevented him from improving his lap. The result was a 12th place on the grid which does not reflect the potential of the car.
Like last year, it was Memo (Rojas) who took the start of the 4h of Le Castellet. The Mexican used all his experience to avoid the pitfalls of the first hour before handing over to Reshad.
For his first race in ELMS, our rookie knew how to show all the extent of his talent. He offered us some great battles, especially with Jack Aitken and Patrick Pilet for 6th position.
Richard (Bradley) was in charge of the finish. Everything was going well until, unfortunately, a puncture caused by a debris, forced him to return to the pits. With this incident, the #30 Oreca finished 12th.
All the work done by the team did not pay off this weekend. But the goal of fighting for the front is there and everything will be put in place to perform in Imola.
Memo ROJAS : "It's a bit of a disappointing result because we had the pace to finish sixth. The puncture, caused by a piece of debris, cost us a lot and made us finish 12th.
But the team did a great job. We still have a lot to do before Imola to hope for a good result there."
Reshad DE GERUS: "This first discovery in endurance went very well for me. I'm really happy with how the weekend went. Unfortunately, we were unlucky in qualifying with the red flag. We had a good race, but the punctures deprived us of a potential Top 6.
We'll keep working to get to Imola as ready as possible to fight at the front of the race."
Richard BRADLEY : "I think we had the potential to achieve something. Obviously, the red flag in qualifying didn't help us. But, my teammates did a fantastic job in the race to get the car back to sixth.
We had a good chance to finish in the top 6 until, unfortunately, a flat tire, caused by a piece of debris, occurred. We had to make an unscheduled pit stop.
Still, we can be proud of our weekend and I think we can look forward to a successful season."
