On Sunday, at 10:34, the nr 46 Oreca 03 Nissan had just completed its 14th lap as overall leader, further to the difficulties faced by the leading Rebellion. TDS Racing had not expected so much from their first entry in the LMS. Already the day before, during the qualifying sessions, the team had confirmed it was ready to play a leading part in LMP2 when Mathias Beche set the best time in the category, nearly eight tenths ahead of the identical Oreca entered by Boutsen Energy. « We have just written the first line of TDS’s history in the Le Mans Series », noted Xavier Combet.
Before this first Endurance race got underway, the Béziers-based team had made a studious start during the practice sessions. « Pierre Thiriet’s mission was to start off Friday morning with some shake-down laps. Eve- rything was working well. Then Jody Firth took over, with the British driver getting to know the team, the car and the circuit. Finally, Mathias set some very good times, confirming the car’s performance. The three worked together ex- tremely well. Pierre and Jody then drove again. Jody had the advantage of taking part in the Speed Series, winning the first race and finishing second in the other. This allowed him to progress faster, with times close to those set by Mathias. Pierre and Jody are generally very similar in terms of lap times, with Mathias faster than them, as he proved by setting the best LMP2 time in qualifying. »
The nr 46 Oreca-Nissan started from 4th position on the grid, behind three LMP1 cars, after the Pescarolo lost its times. The start proved to be chaotic : « Everyone was surprised when the green lights came on, while the safety car was still on the track. Mathias really managed the situation well. He had made a great start, but was able to slot back into his position. »
At the restart, at the start of the long Mistral straight, Kraihamer’s Oreca touched the back of the TDS Oreca and broke part of the air extractor, but without any issues. Leading the LMP2 category, Beche was second overall behind Jani when the safety car came out again. It should be noted that he briefly led the race when Lola-Rebellion had to pit to repair a door.
After its first pitstop, when the TDS team opted to change the tyres, Mathias Beche worked hard to catch up with Kraihamer, and then overtake him. Their duel continued until the second pit-stop on lap 51. « Towards the end, Mathias was becoming aware of what he thought was a slow puncture. We checked the tyres before letting Pierre Thiriet go out, and everything was OK. On his out lap, he became aware of strong understeer. It turned out that it was a steering rod that was giving way. He came back to the pits, and we noticed that this part of the front drive was broken. We lost eight laps in repairing and chec- king everything. We found ourselves last in LMP2, although Pierre quickly regained one position. Then, lap after lap, he continued to make progress, driving 1″5 faster than the category leaders. His lap times were very close to those of the LMP1 cars. Everyone noticed this fine performance, but unfortunately, at the end of his second stint, just before handing over to Jody Firth, Pierre went off under braking and hit the barriers. » The adventure of the nr 46 stopped there, after three hours and 17 minutes of racing, on the 92nd lap.
« Jody was not able to race, and he was very understan- ding. The bodywork damage is considerable, and there is a lot of work to be done. This puts in doubt our participation in the preliminary test session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We will, nevertheless, be present at Spa on May 6th. I would personally like to thank all the TDS team, as they did an extraordinary job to get everything ready for this first meeting. We would also like to thank all the techni- cians from Nissan and Michelin, and we were also particu- larly touched by the support from Oreca this weekend, » concluded Xavier Combet.
Source : TDS Racing