Even so, the team could count itself more fortunate than the hapless Alpine outfit, which finished 18 laps off the leader. The team was already eight laps behind the lead after two lengthy stops to repair the electronic clutch unit and then the ignition coil.
Its woes were compounded by a drive-through penalty in the fourth hour for speeding in pitlane, for a team which had felt aggrieved even before the Tricolour fell, as the French outfit had been hit with a BoP power reduction for its impressive showing in qualifying.
“The race promised to be difficult, and it has been for several reasons,” said team boss Phillipe Sinault. “First of all due to a lack of top speed, which put us in difficulty in traffic.
“We were behind even though we were able to challenge the Glickenhaus when we could take advantage of clear laps.
“There was some confusion when the race director’s radio broke when we entered the slow zone. Nicolas slowed down, but we were accused of speeding and had to respect this penalty as the time limit for contesting it had almost passed.
JOTA took a dominant LMP2 win
DPPI
“Lastly, our two problems with the electronic clutch control unit and the coil are incredibly frustrating as they have never been an issue before.”
The LMP2 class – which had been billed as the main competitive attraction this year at La Sarthe – saw a showdown of 28 cars, with a first incident happening just seconds into the race.
Rene Rast had taken pole in his No31 WRT, shared with Sean Galael and Robin Frijns, but was involved in a collision following the LMP2 leaders going four-wide at the start.
