Nogaro GT Series: Sebastien Loeb, Alvaro Parente win opening race

The Frenchman, who shared his Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren MP4-12C with Alvaro Parente, overtook the WRT Audi of Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof with four laps of the one-hour qualifying race to go.

Parente had run nose to tail with Mayr-Melnhof's team-mate, poleman Rene Rast, through the opening stint, before the Loeb car lost a couple of seconds during the pitstop sequence.

Loeb needed only three laps to close down the deficit to the Audi R8 LMS ultra but a further nine laps to find a way past amateur driver Mayr-Melnhof into Turn 7 at the end of the long back straight.

Loeb, who is focusing on racing this year as he winds down his rally career, said: "We were still in contact with him after the pitstops. I struggled with him a little bit, but in the end I was able to find a little opportunity."

Mayr-Melnhof, who claimed the Pro-Am class with Rast, said: "The tyres were going off a little bit; I was struggling a bit with grip onto the long straight."

Third place and second in the Pro class was taken by the HTP Gravity Charouz Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG driven by Alon Day and Maximilian Buhk.

A quick turnaround during the mandatory pitstops propelled the car from outside the top 10 into third position.

Buhk, champion in European GT3 last year, was more than 13 seconds behind Loeb after the pitstops but was able to close on the battling leaders to finish just over a tenth behind Mayr-Melnhof at the finish.

Audi took fourth and fifth positions with the solo R8s entered by the Phoenix Racing and Novadriver squads, which were driven respectively by Enzo Ide and Anthony Kumpen and Cesar Campanico and Carlos Vieira.

Sixth place went to the Seyffarth Motorsport Mercedes driven by Jan Seyffarth and GT debutant Karun Chandhok, who lost time with a slow pitstop.

Former Manchester United and France goalkeeper Fabien Barthez won the Gentlemen Trophy class for all-amateur line-ups in the Auto Sport Promotion Ferrari 458 Italia he shared with Gerard Tonelli.

Qualifying Race - 39 laps:

Pos  Class   Driver               Team/Car                    Time/Gap
 1.  Pro     Loeb/Parente         Loeb McLaren            1h00m20.554s
 2.  Pro-Am  Rast/Mayr-Melnhof    WRT Audi                    + 5.323s
 3.  Pro     Buhk/Day             Gravity Mercedes            + 5.511s
 4.  Pro     Ide/Kumpen           Phoenix Audi               + 25.257s
 5.  Pro-Am  Campanico/Vieira     Novadriver Audi            + 25.928s
 6.  Pro     Chandhok/Seyffarth   Seyffarth Mercedes         + 41.088s
 7.  Pro     Bueno/Khodair        Brazil BMW                 + 47.646s
 8.  Pro     Zonta/Jimenez        Brazil BMW                 + 49.278s
 9.  Pro-Am  Stumpf/Ricci         Rodrive Ford               + 58.852s
10.  Pro     Zuber/Parisy         Loeb McLaren               + 59.938s
11.  Pro-Am  Ebrahim/Jousse       India BMW                + 1m04.496s
12.  Pro-Am  Proczyk/Baumann      Grasser Lamborghini      + 1m07.981s
13.  Pro-Am  Afanasiev/Simonsen   Gravity Mercedes         + 1m09.067s
14.  Pro-Am  Schulzhitskiy/Reip   RJN Nissan               + 1m19.144s
15.  Gent    Barthez/Tonelli      SOFREV Ferrari              + 1 laps
16.  Pro     Ortelli/Vanthoor     WRT Audi                    + 1 laps
17.  Gent    Mascarello/Tozzo     Rodrive Ford                + 2 laps
18.  Gent    Stovicek/Charouz     Gravity Mercedes            + 2 laps
19.  Pro-Am  Buncombe/Ordonez     RJN Nissan                  + 3 laps

Retirements:

     Pro     Kentenich/Keilwitz   Doer McLaren                 18 laps
     Pro     Stippler/Sandstrom   WRT Audi                     17 laps
     Pro-Am  Ayari/Beaubelique    SOFREV Ferrari                 1 lap

Did not start:

     Pro-Am  Salaquarda/Onidi     AF Ferrari