Pic wins thrilling race 1 at Le Mans

Starting from third, the Frenchman pulled off a superb pass on James Walker for the lead, to add a second victory to his earlier success in round three at Monaco.

Miguel Molina finished second, having led Walker away from pole-position into turn one. Molina ran wide at the Garage Vert on lap eight, allowing Walker into the lead, with Pic following the Jersey driver through into second place.

Pic forced a minor error from the Fortec driver at the Dunlop chicane on lap 15, and sustained pressured from the teenager contributed to the Englishman taking a defensive line at Dunlop on the next tour.

Pic made a superior exit to the corner, and powered passed Walker into the lead before La Chapelle. Once through, Pic pulled away at half-a-second a lap, to achieve a winning margin of some eight seconds.

"I have had engine problems at the Hungaroring and Nurburgring, but we finally found a technical solution yesterday," said Pic. "I was able to overtake Molina into P2 when he made a mistake, and then I had seven or eight laps behind Walker where it was really hard to get by."

Walker's run ended on lap 17 after his machine was struck by a front left puncture, possibly sustained by running over debris created in the preceding Formula Renault Eurocup race.

It was a particularly sad conclusion to the Briton's race, as many of his supporters had made the journey to France from Saint Martin in Jersey.

Fabio Carbone rounded out the final place on the podium, ahead of Ultimate-Signature team-mate Esteban Guerrieri. With Molina in tyre trouble, second to seventh was exceptionally closely contested. Less than three seconds covered the six cars at the chequered flag.

"I made a flat spot on one of my tyres during the opening lap," said Molina, "then on lap two I locked up again, making the same tyre worse."

Clutch problems prevented Giedo van der Garde from taking the start. The P1 Motorsport driver remains in the championship lead on 116 points.

Fabio Carbone's podium moves him into second in the standings, a point above Julien Jousse. However, Carbone trails van der Garde by the considerable margin of 46 points.

Classified:

Pos  Driver            Team                    Time
 1.  Charles Pic       Tech 1 Racing           42:02.538
 2.  Miguel Molina     Prema Powerteam         +   8.229
 3.  Fabio Carbone     Ultimate Signature      +   8.661
 4.  E.Guerrieri       Ultimate Signature      +   9.149
 5.  Marco Bonanomi    Red Devil Team Comtec   +   9.702
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport       +  10.521
 7.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com         +  10.852
 8.  Aleix Alcaraz     Pons Racing             +  17.113
 9.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing           +  17.323
10.  Marco Barba       Draco Racing            +  17.685
11.  A.Marsoin         Epsilon Euskadi         +  22.269
12.  P.Di Sabatino     Red Devil Team Comtec   +  22.757
13.  Fairuz Fauzy      Fortec Motorsport       +  24.192
14.  Robert Wickens    Carlin Motorsport       +  24.655
15.  Marcos Martinez   Pons Racing             +  40.165
16.  C.Cantelli Jr     RC Motorsport           +  40.651
17.  Sergei Afanasiev  KTR                     +  41.740
18.  Siso Cunill       KTR                     +  3 Laps

Not classified:

     Driver            Team                   Laps
     Alvaro Barba      Prema Powerteam         19
     Pablo Sanchez     Interwetten.com         18
     James Walker      Fortec Motorsport       18
     B.Baguette        Draco Racing            12
     Mario Romancini   Epsilon Euskadi          9
     Paolo Nocera      RC Motorsport            8
     Pippa Mann        P1 Motorsport            2
     G.van der Garde   P1 Motorsport            0