Brutal Fish By Campos Wins Road To Le Mans

Arthur Rogeon and August Raber won Friday’s three-hour Road to Le Mans support race ahead of this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, in the No. 12 Brutal Fish by Campos Ligier JS P325 Toyota.

Rogeon finished 23 seconds ahead of the No. 20 High Class Racing Ligier shared by Philip Lindberg and Lenny Ried, with the No. 19 Brutal Fish by Campos Ligier finished third with Matus Ryba and Lucas Fluxa Cross a further minute behind.

French driver Rogeon maintained the lead at the start from pole position ahead of the No. 85 R-ace GP Duqueine D09 Toyota of Enzo Peugeot and the No. 50 23Events Racing Ligier of Colin Queen before an early full-course yellow was called.

Queen spun at Arnage on the restart as Ryba passed Peugeot to move into second, before the No. 50 car was later shown the black-and-orange flag.

A big accident at the Porsche Curves brought out the Safety Car just before the end of the first hour: the No. 97 CLX Motorsport Ligier of Cedric Oltramare went off into the barriers backwards after an earlier incident with another LMP3 car.

The race went back to green after 20 minutes with Lindberg leading overall after the pit stops, with the No. 12 car of Rogeon second but closing the gap. However, Lindberg was given a 10-second time penalty at the No. 20 car’s next stop for a yellow flag infringement.

At the halfway mark the two Brutal Fish by Campos cars were running 1-2. Ried took the lead when the two Campos cars pitted, but Rogeon was able to catch back up to the German driver and pass for the lead after taking over from Raber.

Ryba and Fluxa Cross finished 50 seconds clear of Peugeot and Danial Frost’s R-ace GP entry, while the top five was completed by the No. 4 Nielsen Racing Duqueine of Jules Caranta and Mikaeel Pitamber.

Two of the remaining classes, LMP3 Pro-Am and GT3, saw the provisional winners lose their victories after the checkered flag.