Saturday, the free practices took place in the heat and under a blazing sun. Sunday, the weather was grey with heavy clouds. There were even a few rain showers just before the start of the race. Rain tires were ready. Sunday morning, Nico Verdonck qualified the car in 12th position, less than a second from the pole, and the first McLaren : “Boutsen-Ginion has done a good job, to give us a well-balanced car, but traffic and tire temperatures prevented me from going faster, I’m sure we could still go 0.5 seconds faster .. ” It’s also Nico Verdonck who started the race. And it was a great start for the McLaren MP4 12C GT3 number 5, as at the end of the first hour, Nico was pointed in 2nd position! It was then Edouard Mondron who took the wheel, followed by Jack Clarke who passed the checkered flag. Nico’s two teammates had some brake problems during their stints.

Edouard Mondron : “Nothing catastrophic, but it prevented me from taking the curb as I wanted. I had to be less aggressive in the braking phases, which cost us some time. Inevertheless moved from 22nd to the 15th place during my stint. Jack Clarke was also confronted with this concern at the end, before being forced to make a splash & dash (fuel stop), for the greedy McLaren.

Result : 14th position, in the general ranking, and the second best placed McLaren. On a total of 54 cars present at le Castellet …

ERIC VAN DE POELE AND THIERRY BOUTSEN WILL BE AT SPA !

A good exercise just before the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (28 & 29 of July), where we will have 2 Boutsen-Ginion McLarens on track !. We will come back soon with all the details and the driver line-ups !!! You can already note the presence of Eric van de Poele as one of our driver, and also Thierry Boutsen who will be there for the start of the race !

Source : Boutsen Ginion Racing