Following Raymond Narac and Patrice Milesi’s 4 Hours of Le Castellet VdeV championship vic- tory, IMSA Performance Matmut returned from the summer break ready to continue their Inter- national GT Open campaign at the Hungaroring near Budapest last weekend.

The French squad would endure a difficult round in Hungary however after a series of setbacks prevented them from mounting a serious challenge. Patrick Pilet and Narac nevertheless gave everything during both races as they attempted to recover from little track time during free practice that contributed towards them starting just 10th and 16th on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Indeed, the pair finished eighth during the endurance race before producing an excellent performance on Sunday to make up ten positions en route to sixth place at the finish, only for organisers to impose an unjust post-race 30-second penalty that dropped them back to 15th.

Race 1

Following the problems encountered during free practice (failure of the engine cradle, a consequence of the accident in Le Castellet, and a faulty shock absorber that was discovered during qualifying), Pilet started Saturday’s race from the middle of the pack. He was down to 13th after the first three laps but climbed back up the order by picking off the #53 Ferrari of César Ramos at Turn 7 and then moving into 11th after a successful pass on Michele Rugolo. 36 seconds behind the leaders after 38 minutes of racing, IMSA Performance Matmut called its #16 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR into the pits where Narac was waiting to begin his stint. The flurry of mandatory pit-stops saw the IMSA boss re-join 11th which, thanks to several fast laps, became eighth once the race had settled down again. At that stage the Porsche was just three seconds down on the #56 Ferrari of Rizzoli, a gap that would come down to less than one second by the finish.

Race 2

This time it was Narac’s turn to start the sprint race from 16th position and, after a cautious opening couple of laps, the Frenchman began to attack. In no time at all the Matmut-liveried #16 911 GT3 RSR 2012 was up to 12th and in close company with the #11, #56 and #44 Ferraris of Broniszewski, Rizzoli and Dalle Stelle despite the unwanted attention of Daniel Roos’ GT3-spec #75 BMW. With 12 laps gone it was Pilet’s turn to take the wheel during a lightning pit-stop, albeit one that coincided with that of the cars ahead. Having re- joined 12th, the official Porsche driver immediately began setting fastest times, his 1m48.894s benchmark coming on only his second lap and helping to catch Gianmaria Bruni’s #4 Ferrari. With the Italian dispatched, Pilet continued his unrelenting climb up the order, overtaking one car after another including both the #77 and #5 Ferraris with which he avoided contact.

Patrick Pilet (official Porsche driver, #16 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 2012): “Qualifying and race one were difficult as the 911 was not working perfectly due to a faulty shock absorber at the front, which is the reason we started from 16th in race two and had to fight hard in order to climb back up the order. With the new shock absorber we were significantly faster. We are not yet on the same level as our rivals but we are working hard in order to reduce the gap to them. To come back from 16th to sixth place in the race was a great achievement.”

Raymond Narac (Driver of #16 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 2012 and IMSA Performance Matmut co-owner): “This is the type of event you would rather avoid as the setbacks have been many. We had an engine issue during free practice that prevented us from setting the car up as we wanted. The next day we discovered that a key part of the car near the rear engine support had broken, a consequence of the accident and impact we suffered during the second race at Le Castellet where a Corvette hit me. The part was cracked but we could not see it. We were lucky that this issue happened during free practice and not the race, despite losing the time that normally allows you to try different set-ups. Our final mechanical problem, an issue with a shock absorber, has been a recurring problem with this supplier and prevented us from having a good place on the grid. The car was impossible to drive. In all of the right-handed corners it was bouncing around and we could not control it. The front left-hand shock absorber, which had been serviced, was not working. After changing it things were much better. We had a great race on Sunday after climbing up 10 places before being penalised when Patrick slightly touched the Ferrari of Talkanitsa who himself admitted to turning in on our driver. We are shocked by the size of the penalty imposed (30 seconds) in view of the incident. In the end, it turned into a black weekend.”

Source : IMSA Performance Matmut