Seventh Heaven as Greaves Motorsport takes win number seven in the 2011 Ricard Winter Series
Greaves Motorsport added to their existing tally of six victories in the Ricard Winter Series today at the Le Castellet circuit in the South of France. Karim Ojjeh started from the front row of the grid for Race One after recording the 2nd best time in Qualifying. He grabbed an early lead but was forced down to 2nd place by the late braking Pierre Ehret at the end of the Mistral Straight. Karim regained his spot at the head of the pack after the leader spun while pushing hard. The battle at the front then settled down with the Greaves Motorsport car extending its lead lap by lap. By the time the Chequered Flag was waved to signal the end of the race the gap had extended to over 40 seconds.
Seven wins out of seven races, could the winning streak be kept going? Would they whitewash the opposition?
Race Two saw Gary Chalandon really thrown in at the deep end. His first competitive drive in a Radical was a steep learning curve and finding the limit during the Qualifying session proved particularly challenging. Nevertheless he picked up the pace during the race to spend most of time on track in the top three. Three laps from the finish his inexperience in the Radical showed and he just pushed wide to lose a début podium place. However a 4th place overall and 2nd in class was a great introduction for the young Frenchman to the Ricard Winter Series.
Race Three was always going to be tough for Greaves Motorsport. Karim Ojjeh started the contest from 6th place on the grid but eventually vaulted up the leader-board to take the top spot before the mandatory pit stop. Once again he pressured Pierre Ehret into a mistake to snatch the lead. Then during the pit stop and driver change, disaster struck. The Radical refused to fire up and precious time was lost as the time strived to cure the problem, Eventually Gary Chalandon got back onto the Le Castellet circuit but the race victory had got away from the team. Gary pushed very hard, benefiting from his experience in Race Two to recover to 6th overall and 3rd in class. It was by any standards a real baptism of fire.
Team Principal, Tim Greaves, expressed surprise at the new pace of the #7 FLM, a complete change from the previous races.
The other Greaves Motorsport entry, #23, had a challenging race day. Maurice Basso had a good run in Race One finishing strongly in 4th overall and 3rd in class. Jean-Marc Lucco was baulked by squabbling GT cars in Race Two so ended up in 8th position. The two GTs received a retrospective drive through penalty cars after the race which promoted Jean-Marc to 6th. Race Three saw the #23 strike similar problems in the pits to the sister car and a top ten finish was lost as a result of the delay.
The Ricard Winter Series does not award points to create a championship but if it did, Karim Ojjeh would be surely crowned as Champion. Three individual wins and two in partnership with Jacob Greaves would have put him out of reach of his fellow competitors. Add in the two victories scored by Jacob and it is clear that Greaves Motorsport would be the Team Champions. A great start to the year and something for the team to build on when competing in the 2011 Le Mans Series.
An update on the situation of the Team’s LMP2 car after the unfortunate accident during testing at Imola last week.
Jacob Greaves, Team Manager said “There is a huge amount of work to be done and many suppliers are already working flat out and many favours are going to be needed to get us on track in time.”
Source : Greaves Motorsport