Being the sole AMR powered team within the ELMS of course, the #59 Vantage LMGT3 of Clement Mateu, Erwan Bastard and Valentin Hasse-Clot had been looking to be well on the GT pace in the preliminary sessions of last weekends visit to Imola in Italy with possibly only the red flag interruption during Qualifying losing Mateu a better chance at class pole position again.
Having had to settle for just a front row starting position this time around, there was still plenty of inter-class contact within the opening laps to readjust that running order with the #59 car taking the early lead in class as minor issues on track finally built up to an incident on track which saw up to six cars involved at the bottom of the first half hour of racing.
Fortunately, not involving the RSLM Aston Martin, it did eliminate three LMGT3 class rivals as the race was red flagged to allow for the clear up operation, but the race soon got back underway after a 15-20minute delay (although the race clock did keep running) but Mateu would have to suffer the consequences of two of his own actions on track.
First starting out of position on track at the start and then his reduction and adherence to the Full Course yellow speed limit on track would earn the Frenchman individual drive through penalties from which there would be no recovery on track from either himself or his co-drivers.
The best that the #59 car could then offer was to attempt to stay on the lead lap in and around seventh in class from the halfway stage but the continued periods of caution without the ability of a wave around would never improve their position as the weather again came into question as the skies darkened again.
Into the final hour of the race, an off-track excursion for the #59 car further delayed them although they didn’t loose any further track position then although they would at their final stop as Hasse-Clot was forced to suffer an additional ten second time penalty for an earlier (unknown by us) incident.
The four hours of Imola would finally end for the all-French driver crew with a distant P29 overall and P7 in class finish for their efforts as both the team and Hasse-Clot refocus their attention to this weekend’s FIA WEC round from Brazil.
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media