Valentino Rossi achieved his first victory at the wheel of a GT3 in Race 2 of the Le Mans Cup, staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the Road to Le Mans, a support event to the 24h of the FIA WEC.
The ‘Doctor’ was entered in the GT3 Class with the BMW of Team WRT, shared this time with a special guest for the Belgian team, Jérôme Policand, highly experienced driver and now boss of the Mercedes Akkodis-ASP team, who is Valentino’s rival in the GT World Challenge Europe.
Policand responded to the invitation of the WRT boss, Vincent Vosse, his longtime friend, and together with Rossi the two immediately showed great competitiveness by signing the second time trial in Qualifying 1 (Valentino) and the Pole Position in Qualification 2 (French).
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Valentino Rossi, Jerome Policand
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
The driver from Tavullia had the start of Race 1 and after a few corners he even found himself in the lead, but a contact between the LMP3s in front of him forced him to widen his trajectory in the first chicane of the ‘Hunaudières’ straight, losing several positions to avoid the accident.
Once the Safety Car came out, Rossi recovered up to second place to then hand over the wheel to Policand for the second part of the race, but the transalpine was hit by a rival at the first chicane and found himself crossing the finish line sadly 13 st in the category and 43rd overall, while the victory was celebrated by their colleagues Tim Whale and Max Hesse in the #31 BMW ahead of the #86 Porsche of HC (Creswick/Fjordbach) and the #10 Aston Martin of Racing Spirit of Leman (Robin /Hasse-Clot).
Even in Race 2 there was no shortage of skirmishes between all the competitors on the too crowded grid; Policand managed to stay out of trouble and the pit stop under the Safety Car saw Rossi back on track in the #46 M4 in the Top5.
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Valentino Rossi, Jerome Policand
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Having moved up a couple of positions, the Pesaro found himself fighting for the place of honor with the Porsche of Fjordbach, overtaken after a long pressure with a beautiful move inside at ‘Tertre Rouge’, to then stretch in the last two laps .
A penalty imposed on the Ferrari of AF Corse #51 for an infraction committed by Kei Cozzolino gave the duo Rossi/Policand the lead, which then celebrates the triumph on the BMW of Whale/Hesse and the Mercedes #57 of Kurtz/Ward (Winward Racing).
Among the LMP3s – and at an absolute level – the success of Race 1 goes to the Ligier #58 of Team Virage with Rich/Espirito Santo, beating the Duqueine #4 of Nielsen Racing in the hands of Melsom/Bell and the Ligier #77 of Team Thor ( Gudmundsson/Noble).
The latter had crossed the line earlier in Race 2, but a penalty received in the final drops her down the order, handing the lead to the #97 Ligier of Cool Racing (Sanjuan/Droux) ahead of the #33 Duqueine of WTM by Rinaldi Racing (Kratz/Weiss) and CD Sport’s Ligier #2 (Michal/Smal).
LE MANS CUP – Road To Le Mans: Gara 1
LE MANS CUP – Road To Le Mans: Gara 2
