With the end of the winter break, the opening round of the 2011 European Le Mans Series Championship took place on 3 April at the Le Castellet track, France. Of the 34 cars expected, one of them was more awaited. It was of course the Pescarolo-Judd No.16 which, it should be remembered, had been missing during the finest Endurance races since end 2009. Yet all of that is now just a bad and distant memory. Indeed, four months, day for day, after the re-opening of his workshop, Henri Pescarolo's team quite simply took victory again by winning the race of its re-appearance! In top form at this beginning of the season, the Collard-Jousse-Tinseau trio indeed clinched the 6 Hours of Le Castellet by dominating the two Lola-Toyota/Rebellions and the Zytek/ASM.
Another team, but same result in the LMP2 category, with the victory of the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan of Team Greaves Motorsport – Nissan, also supported technically by Motul. Thanks to its reliability and constancy, the British car caught up, lap after lap, with its contenders and finally took victory in its category and also third step on the podium in the general standings.
In GT2, the tips were completely wrong right from the beginning owing to an impressive crash, so another Motul team also podiumed: Kessel Racing. At the end of the six hours racing, Peter and Broniszewski managed to take third step of the GT2 Am podium with the Swiss team's F430.
Photos:
Collard-Jousse-Tinseau - Pescarolo Team - Pescarolo-Judd © V-Images
Gary Chalandon - Team Greaves Motorsport - Zytek Nissan © Pierre Yves Riom
