This weekend the fourth round of the European Le Mans Series took place on the Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France. ProSpeed Competition had entered a Porsche 911 GT3-R in the GTC class, manned by the Frenchmen Mike Parisy and Gilles Vannelet and the promising young Dutchman, Max Van Splunteren. Following four hours of intense battle the trio finished in ninth place in this high-ranking GTC class and have once more scored points for the championship.
The European Le Mans Series are once again the reference when it comes to endurance racing in Europe. The starting grids are always excellent and of a high quality, and the competition remains extremely intense, as drivers fight it out for each place. During the second free practice session the Belgian Porsche topped the timing sheet, and this showed promise for the rest of the weekend. When it came to qualifying the three drivers found themselves on the fourth row of the grid, finally finishing the four race in ninth spot. The championship is now approaching its final round, to be held in Portugal during the weekend of 18th and 19th October on the Estoril coast. In the meanwhile ProSpeed Competition will be competing next week in the fourth round of the FIA WEC – World Endurance Championship in Austin, USA.
Rudi Penders (ProSpeed Competition Team Principal)
“It is in fact a high-ranked competition where everything has to be perfect. This weekend the team enjoyed a faultless weekend, with a well-thought out strategy and faultless and fast pit stops. However this on its own is not sufficient. The differences between the various cars and teams are extremely tight and then on top of that everything has to be perfectly in balance. One of the championship’s elements is the ranking of the drivers. In short, in the GTC category you are not permitted to enter three professional drivers, but you can have a combination of gentlemen-drivers and professionals. Each driver is ranked in a category, ranging from bronze for the true gentlemen-drivers through to platinum for the absolute top. It goes without saying that in this category there is a difficult balancing exercise that can have major effects and influences. This is a subjective exercise, not a mathematical one… In my opinion there’s still some fine-tuning to be carried out here and there.”
Mike Parisy (Driver – #75 ProSpeed Competition Porsche 911 GT3-R – GTC Class)
“Just prior to my stint one of my teammates was involved in a race incident. The splitter was damaged as the result of being hit by a loose running tyre from another competitor’s car. Up until then the car was going very fast, however with a slight defect to the splitter the car had lost it’s ideal balance, which is not an ideal situation on a circuit such as that of Paul Ricard. As from that moment it became difficult to keep to the pace of the other top players in the race.”
Max Van Splunteren (Driver – #75 ProSpeed Porsche 911 GT3-R – GTC Class)
“I’ve achieved another step in my learning curve at an international level. I had a trouble- free run, and once again this weekend I had the opportunity of working with a professional team. For me this is an important part of my competing in the European Le Mans Series.”