99 Racing Wins Rain-Hit Saturday Sepang Race

The 99 Racing team scored its first win in LMP2 competition with victory in a rain-shortened Asian Le Mans Series season opener at Sepang.

Louis Deletraz, Nikita Mazepin and Ahmad Al Harthy came out on top in Saturday’s four-hour curtain-raiser in their No. 99 Oreca 07 Gibson as the arrival of heavy rain led to the race being abandoned with just under 10 minutes to go.

Deletraz had to withstand a late challenge from the AF Corse Oreca of Matthieu Vaxiviere in the closing stages before Vaxiviere went off in the worsening conditions, before the safety car was deployed with 15 minutes left on the clock.

That was followed by the red flags, which effectively confirmed victory for 99 Racing and gave both ex-Formula 1 racer Mazepin and Al Harthy their first wins in prototypes.

Much of the first half of the race was controlled by the Duqueine Team Oreca as John Falb jumped his opposite number in the pole-sitting TF Sport Oreca, Michael Dinan, during the first round of stops.

The Duqueine car dropped back as the team made the first of its two regulation 1:40 timed stops when Falb handed over to Carl Wattane Bennett, but by the halfway mark Bennett was back in front with a narrow advantage over the No. 22 Proton Competition Oreca of Julien Andlauer.

However, as Andlauer closed and the pair battled for the lead, Bennett spun and got beached in the gravel at Turn 11.

After a safety car intervention to retrieve the stricken Duqueine car, Andlauer led the AF Corse car of Alessio Rovera, which then dropped after being forced to serve an emergency pitstop during a brief full-course yellow a handful of laps later.

Heading into the final hour the Proton car, now with Rene Binder at the wheel, held a four-second lead over Deletraz, who had taken over the 99 Racing entry from Mazepin.

A second safety car was called when the Viper Niza Racing LMP3 car suffered an off at Turn 1, which meant Binder came under immediate pressure from Deletraz in what were by now slightly damp conditions.

Having taken over the AF entry from Rovera, Vaxiviere was third and soon found his way by Binder for second and increasingly pressured leader Deletraz as the rain intensified.

With the rain forcing the leaders to come in for wet tires, Vaxiviere was closing rapidly on Deletraz when he made his error at Turn 11, although he hung onto second place in the car he shared with Rovera and Francois Perrodo, 10 seconds down at the finish.

A slightly earlier change to wets allowed Tom Dillmann to grab third in the DKR Engineering Oreca he shared with Alexander Mattschull and Laurents Hoerr.

Conversely, the No. 22 Proton squad left it too late to change, with Binder struggling in the conditions before finally coming in for wets, dropping him to fifth behind the sister No. 55 Oreca in which Harry Tincknell took the finish.

The pole-winning TF Sport car ended up in seventh, suffering two delays when Charlie Eastwood had to pit for a new nose after contact with an LMP3 car in the third hour and again with an emergency stop under safety car in the final hour.

Duqueine finally finished 11th and last in class, two laps down on the leaders.

Cool Racing, Sainteloc Audi Take Class Honors

In LMP3, Cool Racing trio James Winslow, Danial Frost and Alexander Bukhantsov came away with victory by more than a minute in their No. 37 Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

CD Sport beat Bretton Racing in a close battle for second, albeit more than a minute down on the leaders.

Sainteloc Racing claimed honors in the GT division with the No. 42 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase, Gilles Magnus and Alban Varutti.

Bronze-rated Varutti had built up a lead of almost a minute in the early part of the race, but this advantage was all but wiped out by the first safety car period.

There was further misfortune for the team when Haase was held at the end of pit road during the second safety car, but the German veteran timed his switch to wet tires to perfection and survived the treacherous late conditions to bring home the win.

Audi came away with a podium lockout as the No. 66 Attempto Racing car was second, while the second of the Sainteloc cars, the No. 43, was third.

Action continues at Sepang with another four-hour race on Sunday, starting at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT).

Results: 4 Hours of Sepang