The sun was shining this morning when the start of the race was given. Mathias Beche made a great getaway from Gavin Cronje, Damien Toulemonde and Anthony Beltoise. Beche and Cronje went at it hammer and tongs on Les Hunaudières, and braked neck and neck for the first chicane. Beche cut the chicane and almost spun. He held on to the lead with Cronje glued to his gearbox. Vincent Capillaire spun at Mulsanne but continued.
At the end of lap 1, Race Control gave Beche a warning after his off in the first chicane, but the Swiss held onto his lead from Cronje. Behind these two, Toulemonde went wide in the link corner and Ludovic Badey nipped past after overtaking Anthony Beltoise.
After two laps, Beche still held off Cronje. Badey in third was around 4 seconds behind. On lap 3, Kaufmann continued his great fight back and took fourth. Pascal Ballay went off at Indianapolis and lost time in the gravel trap before restarting.
On lap 4, the battle between Beche and Cronje grew even more intense. Beche closed the door on several occasions forcing Cronje to take to the grass. The Stewards weren’t too happy with this and gave him a stop and go!
At the start of lap 5, the scrap between Badey and Kaufmann ended in tears.The two cars touched. The German continued and then punctured, while the Graff Racing driver spun and fell back to sixth. Natacha Gachnang took advantage of this to move up to fourth. On lap 6, Beche came in for his stop and go, while Kaufmann finished his race at Mulsanne.
At the end of lap 6, Cronje took the lead after Beche’s penalty. The following lap saw the first driver changes. Damien Toulemonde also crawled back to his pit.
At the start of lap 9, while Cronje was still in the lead from Beltoise and Gachnang, the South African handed over to Nico Verdonck. After the wave of driver changes, Verdonck held a comfortable lead with around 20 seconds in hand over Christophe Pillon and Valle Mäkela.
Three laps from the end, Gabriel Abergel lost control of his car on the exit from Arnage. The 2 Hope Pole Vision cars were battling for second place and Mäkela found an opening on the last lap in the first chicane on Les Hunaudières.
Cronje took the chequered flag on lap 12 with 27 seconds in hand over Mäkela and 29 over Pillon. At the end of this prestigious race in the Sarthe, Gavin Cronje and Nico Verdonck scored their third win on the trot and remain unbeaten in the first Formula Le Mans Cup.
Race results : formula-le-mans-cup-race2
Drivers standings : classt-flm-09-drivers3
Teams standings : classt-flm-09-teams1
