Red Bull Ring ELMS: Signatech Alpine beats Jota to victory
Defending champion team Signatech Alpine claimed its first win of the 2014 European Le Mans Series at the Red Bull Ring
Signatech drivers Nelson Panciatici, Paul-Loup Chatin and Oliver Webb prevailed by 12 seconds over round two winner Jota Sport aboard their Alpine-badged ORECA-Nissan 03R.
The winning car moved into contention in the second hour when Chatin went up against Simon Dolan in the Jota Zytek-Nissan Z11SN.
The Frenchman took the lead after the second round of pitstops and eked out a small margin in the battle of the silver-rated drivers.
Chatin found himself with an eight-second advantage over Harry Tincknell, who took over from Dolan in the third hour, and was crucially able to keep him behind until the closing laps of his stint.
Tincknell built a lead of six seconds, which all but disappeared when Signatech turned its car around at the final round of pitstops quicker than Jota.
Dolan, who returned to his car to complete his minimum driving time, emerged with only a couple of car lengths over Webb, who was able to outdrag the Zytek out of the second corner one lap latter.
Signatech boss Philippe Sinault said: "Paul-Loup's pace was the key to our victory today.
"He was able to keep Tincknell behind and then briefly repass him. That meant the Jota car didn't have many laps to build an advantage, which could have been the difference today."
Filipe Albuquerque had led from pole position in the Jota Zytek, building up a lead of seven seconds over Michel Frey in the Race Performance ORECA-Judd/BMW 03 despite a short safety-car period.
The Race Performance car ended up third, but was never truly in contention after Frey lost ground in the latter stages of his opening double stint on the soft Dunlop tyre.
Fourth place went to the Greaves Motorsport Nissan-Zytek shared by prototype debutant Luciano Bacheta and Mark Shulzhitskiy.
The Morand Racing Morgan-Judd/BMW LMP2 driven by Pierre Ragues, Gary Hirsch and Christian Klien pinched fifth from the second Greaves car in the closing stages, despite receiving no fewer than three penalties over the course of the race.
AF AND SMP FERRARIS WIN GT CLASSES
GTE honours went to the AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia shared by Duncan Cameron, Michele Rugolo and Matt Griffin.
Griffin took the lead from the Kessel Ferrari driven by Thomas Kemenater in the penultimate hour, before Kessel got the car back to the front at the final round of stops by sending Matteo Cressoni out without changing tyres.
Rugolo had to chase down a gap of 10s, but was equal to the task and ended up winning by nearly half a minute.
The British JMW team vaulted its Ferrari to third in class at the final stops when it also opted not to change tyres as it sent team returnee Rob Bell out for the run to the flag.
The McLaren factory driver, who shared the car with team regulars Daniel McKenzie and George Richardson, had enough to resist a challenge from Pierre Kaffer in the AT Racing Ferrari.
The GTC class was won by the best of the Franco-Russian SMP Racing Ferraris shared by Kirill Ladygin, Luca Persiani and Aleksey Basov, which led the class nearly all the way.
Leading results - 160 laps: Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. P2 Chatin/Panciatici/Webb Signatech ORECA-Nissan 4h00m16.248s 2. P2 Dolan/Tincknell/Albuquerque Jota Zytek-Nissan +12.385s 3. P2 Frey/Mailleux Race Performance ORECA-Judd +18.772s 4. P2 Bacheta/Shulzhitskiy Greaves Zytek-Nissan +1m10.184s 5. P2 Klien/Hirsch/Ragues Morand Morgan-Judd -2 laps 6. P2 Kimber-Smith/Dyson/McMurry Greaves Zytek-Nissan -2 laps 7. GTE Cameron/Griffin/Venturi AF Ferrari -7 laps 8. GTE Aluko/Kemenater/Cressoni Kessel Ferrari -7 laps 9. GTE McKenzie/Richardson/Bell JMW Ferrari -7 laps 10. GTE Talkanitsa/Talkanitsa/Kaffer AT Ferrari -7 laps Other class winners: 15. GTC Ladygin/Basov/Persiani SMP Ferrari -9 laps
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