A spin costs the Racing Spirit of Leman AMR at the ELMS opener in Barcelona

For this year, the #59 entry is also an all-French affair as AMR factory driver Valentin Hasse-Clot remains and he has brought last season’s D’Station Racing World Endurance Championship drivers Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard with him for their assault within the ultra-competitive LMGT3 class.

Lasts week’s Prologue Test appeared to be productive for the team as whilst Hasse-Clot has already had racing duties this season, we don’t believe that either Mateu or Bastard had turned a racing lap on track up to this point so going into Saturday’s Qualifying for the opening round – all appeared well.

That confidence transpired through Qualifying as Mateu delivered the goods to slot his #59 car onto the second row of the grid for Sunday’s four-hour opener within their thirteen-car strong class.

Under blue skies with a cooling breeze, forty-four multi-classed cars took the start with the #59 Aston looking to replicate the feat of the Code Racing Development AMR within Saturday’s opening round of the Le Mans Cup where they finished a magnificent second in class for their debuting efforts.

With the speed differential between the LMP2 protypes and the slower LMGT3’s as such, it wasn’t long before the leading prototypes started passing through the LMGT3 field for the first time of many as Mateu had by then slipped to P5 in class as the teams bronze rated driver held onto that position throughout his first hour of driving.

Back out again for his second hour long stint, Mateu quickly looked to regain ground lost to his earlier stop as the first Safety Car was called for a Ferrari LMGT3 car backed into the gravel trap at the ninety-minute mark. Losing twenty minutes to that, the race soon got back to business with the #59 car hanging onto P4 in class.

With sixty-four laps now under his belt, Mateu day was done as he handed the car over to silver ranked driver Bastard as it was clear now that the car to chase was the #85 Iron Dames Porsche who were by now maintaining a healthy lead from their present fifth position. A spin and an excursion through the gravel at turn ten compounded their own issues as the car lost ground during both the spin and the time it took to clean the Goodyear tyres up again.

Eighty minutes to go and another Safety Car for the extraction of a stranded LMP3 car in the gravel at least brought the gaps back down again but the race only got going again just before the final stop to allow Hasse-Clot into the car in the chase to the flag from what was now P9.

Two late yellows for stranded prototypes raised the pressures on the class leaders as the opening race entered its final half hour before another Safety Car in the final fifteen minutes as Hasse-Clot pushed – first for P8 before the final Safety Car before grabbing P7 by the chequered flag for six valuable championship points.

The next round of the series will be from Le Castellet in France at the beginning of May.

Photo credits – Team / series / social media