ELMS Paul Ricard: Ex-F1 driver Klien holds on to win for Morand
A trio of impressive performances allowed Morand Racing to take victory in the penultimate European Le Mans Series race of the season at Paul Ricard
A superb double stint by Pierre Ragues moved the French team from third to first an hour into the four-hour event.
His stint was duly followed by a decent drive by Gary Hirsch, before Christian Klien took the baton.
The ex-Formula 1 driver joined the action in second place behind the Murphy ORECA-Nissan of Rodolfo Gonzalez and the pair soon began fighting for the lead.
The Venezuelan initially did a great job of holding him back, but Klien made good use of traffic to put the Morand Racing Morgan-Judd back at the front of the field with an hour left on the clock.
Gonzalez pitted soon after to make way for poleman Nathanael Berthon, who looked like a potential threat to Klien as he produced metronomically quick lap times. But disaster struck when he was hit with a drive-through penalty due to a refuelling infringement during an earlier pitstop.
That meant Klien had a 27-second lead over Paul-Loup Chatin in the Signatech Alpine-Nissan with 30 minutes remaining.
Chatin closed in, but it was not enough time for the Red Bull Ring victors to repeat their success and 5.518s was the gap at the finish.
"It wasn't an easy win as I double-stinted and the tyres were very tricky towards the end," said Klien, explaining his lack of pace during the last few laps.
Last year's Paul Ricard winner Murphy Prototypes claimed the final spot on the podium despite Berthon's late penalty. Brazilian open-wheel driver Pipo Derani looked particularly comfortable in his sportscar racing debut with the Irish squad, having run towards the front all afternoon.
The Jota Zytek-Nissan of Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Ricard debutant Filipe Albuquerque finished a distant fourth, despite a valiant effort by the Portuguese factory Audi driver near the end.
The Russian/British combination of Mark Shulzhitskiy and Luciano Bacheta had an anonymous race in the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan and were the best part of two minutes behind at the finish.
AF FERRARI TOPS GTE
Michele Rugolo had the measure of Pierre Kaffer in the GTE battle in the final stages of the race.
The #55 AF Corse Ferrari team has been mighty this season and another two standout drives by Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin allowed Rugolo to defeat their AT Racing rivals.
The win also extends their lead in the championship after the #72 SMP Ferrari was hit with a series of penalties and finished seventh.
Their sister GTC car had a better afternoon, however, as it dominated the class to finally take a victory after being the bridesmaid so far this season with three runner-up positions.
Olivier Beretta, David Markozov and Anton Ladygin were unmatched in the #71 SMP Ferrari 458 and were followed home by the #60 Formula Racing and #98 ART Grand Prix outfits.
Leading results - 125 laps/four hours: Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. P2 Klien/Hirsch/Ragues Morand Morgan-Judd 4h00m33.427s 2. P2 Chatin/Panciatici/Webb Signatech Alpine-Nissan +5.518s 3. P2 Derani/Berthon/Gonzalez Murphy ORECA-Nissan +18.856s 4. P2 Dolan/Tincknell/Albuquerque Jota Zytek-Nissan +1m20.558s 5. P2 Bacheta/Schulzhitskiy Greaves Zytek-Nissan +1m57.916s 6. P2 Capillaire/Roda/Pic Loeb ORECA-Nissan -2 laps 7. P2 Frey/Mailleux Race Perf. ORECA-Judd -3 laps 8. GTE Cameron/Griffin/Rugolo AF Corse Ferrari -6 laps 9. GTE Talkanitsa/Kaffer/Venturi AT Racing Ferrari -6 laps 10. GTE McKenzie/Richardson/Walker JMW Ferrari -6 laps Other class winners: 17. GTC A. Ladygin/Markozov/Beretta SMP Ferrari -8 laps
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