Barcelona goes wrong for the Racing Spirit of Leman team after their meticulous preparation

 

 

Racing fortunes sadly evaded the Racing Spirit of Leman team earlier today as they transitioned from one ACO rules series to another having just won the GT3 class of the Michelin Le Mans Cup Series with their Aston Martin Racing powered pairing.

Stepping up a notch into their #59 AMR Vantage LMGT3, their all-French crew of Clement Mateu, Marius Fossard and Valentin Hasse-Clot had certainly been pressing all of the right buttons running through Free Practice for the opening round to the 2026 European Le Mans Series from the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona.

Finishing mid-table at the end of Free Practice 1, Mateu climbed the order board during his bronze driver test to finish second fastest before the trio went on to finish the fastest LMGT3 crew out of the class of fourteen entries as the end of Free Practice 2.

 

Qualifying, however, would see a half a second gap make the difference between pole position and a fourth place starting position for the #59 car.

Sundays start to the opening four-hour race would be its usual chaotic self as two separate incidents into the opening sequence of corners bring out the red flag before the end of the opening lap as over seven LMP2 and LMP3 cars lay strewn across of the circuit in various states of broken.

Losing nearly half an hour to that clean-up operation, it was soon go again for Mateu and the remaining grid as he quickly caught and harassed the then class leading Mercedes for position. Things didn’t matter that a Ferrari works driver soon passed him for position as they still circulated in fourth.

 

 

Things then sadly went from bad to worse as first the #59 made contact with another class rival – spinning that around and before he could get back to pit lane for the upcoming full service and driver change, another error saw the #59 spin backwards into the gravel. No damage but that cost the crew over a lap – something that was then made worse with a drive through penalty for both speeding in the pit lane at that stop and another for the earlier contact with the Porsche at turn 6.

That all but destroyed the #59 cars chances within class irrespective of the driving abilities of the team debuting Fossard and despite the confidence of Hasse-Clot having just won his first Michelin Le Mans Cup Series race with the team and Philipp Sager the day before.

With insufficient wave around possibilities over the next two hours of racing (and despite the constant stream of caution periods all dealt with independently by Race Control), the #59 car and crew would eventually finish round one of the season P37 overall and P10 in class.

 

The calendar now gives the team little over three weeks to gather their thoughts before the next round from Paul Ricard. The car and crew had both the speed and the ability – just that the execution let them down this time so the next race is another race!!

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