Cetilar Doubles Up in Rain-Hit Second Sepang Race

Cetilar Racing made it two wins from as many races in the opening weekend of the new Asian Le Mans Series season at Sepang as Roberto Lacorte, Charles Milesi and Antonio Fuoco eased to a dominant win in a Sunday encounter cut short by heavy rain.

The AF Corse-run No. 47 Oreca 07 Gibson enjoyed a commanding 31-second lead in the hands of Fuoco over the chasing No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing car of Enzo Trulli when the safety car was deployed for a third time with 25 minutes to go.

That followed two separate incidents as both Paul di Resta’s No. 6 United Autosports Oreca (following contact with Mathias Beche’s DKR Engineering car) and Julien Gerbi’s No. 1 Team Virage Ligier LMP3 car got beached in the gravel.

It promised to set up a thrilling end to a race which Cetilar had controlled since the end of the previous safety car period with around 90 minutes to go, when Fuoco passed Tom Dillmann in the APR car for the lead before gapping the field.

Indeed, the track had not long dried out after a previous rain shower soaked the track around halfway, but not long after the safety car was called for the final time, even heavier rain began to fall across the Malaysian circuit.

Race control made the call to halt the race with 13 minutes left on the clock, confirming Lacorte, Milesi and Fuoco as the winners, with LMP2 debutant Trulli, Dillmann and Michael Jensen securing second in a repeat of Saturday’s result.

George Kurtz, Malthe Jakobsen and Louis Deletraz finished third in their No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR entry after Jakobsen lost second place to Trulli, who unusually took back over from Dillmann for the final part of the race, with 38 minutes to run — making it an identical overall podium lineup to Saturday’s opener.

Beche survived his late brush with a lapped di Resta to claim fourth in the DKR Engineering Oreca he shared with Alexander Mattschull and another LMP2 novice, Griffin Peebles, while Proton Competition’s No. 88 car, shared by father-and-son duo Horst Jr and Felix Felbermayr, plus Lorenzo Fluxa, completed the top five.

United’s No. 5 car, which enjoyed in a spell in the lead in the hands of Giorgio Roda early on, was sixth after Mikkel Jensen picked up a drive-through penalty for tipping the RD Limited car of Tristan Vautier into a spin.

Inter Europol Competition’s No. 43 Oreca was another early contender that dropped back as the car experienced what appeared to be multiple electrical shutdowns after Nick Cassidy handed over to Nolan Siegel, finishing 12th.

Algarve Pro’s No. 20 car led after the first rain shower as John Falb braved it out on slick tires, and remained in the top-five mix until one of its rear tires was mistakenly attached to the front and vice versa in a late pit stop — dropping to 13th as a result.

CLX Motorsport, Kessel Racing Claim Straightforward Class Wins

In LMP3, the No. 17 CLX Motorsport Ligier JS P325 Toyota of Paul Lanchere, Kevin Rabin and Alexander Jacoby took a comfortable win.

Serving both regulation long pit stops during the very first virtual safety car period set up the No. 17 Ligier for success, surviving a five-second pit stop penalty for a VSC infringement with its advantage in tact.

Jacoby regained the advantage in the closing stages when the No. 8 Team Virage Ligier made its last stop not long before the final safety car period, and was some 50 seconds clear of Matus Ryba’s No. 71 23Events Racing Ligier when it was called.

Ryba secured the runner-up spot in the car he shared with Terrence Woodward and Ibrahim Badawy, followed by the No. 29 Forestier Racing by VPS Ligier, as the No. 8 Team Virage entry slipped to fifth in class behind the Saturday race-winning No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier after its late final stop.

GT honors went to the No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Dennis Marschall, Dustin Blattner and Chris Lulham, which gained the advantage after the first safety car period wiped out a significant lead for the No. 37 QMMF by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG.

Bronze-rated Abdulla Ali Al-Khelaifi had built a large gap over the opposition early in the race, but his compatriot Ghanim Al-Maadheed was less competitive in the middle stint after the No. 37 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo’s advantage had been lost, ceding the lead to Lulham in the Kessel Ferrari at the mid-point of the race.

After the penultimate safety car, Lulham built a lead of almost 20 seconds over the Origine Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Leo Ye Hongli — whose co-driver Yuan Bo had carved through the field early on with some incisive overtakes — before handing over to Marschall, who maintained that advantage to the final safety car.

Ye, Yuan and Laurin Heinrich were overhauled in the fight for second by the No. 69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper, who had reduced the lead gap to 12 seconds before the race was neutralized.

A pair of AF Corse Ferraris completed the top five in class as Davide Rigon in the No. 51 car staved off pressure from Alessandro Pier Guidi’s No. 54 car to keep hold of fourth.

GetSpeed had to be content with a best finish of sixth for its Saturday race-winning No. 9 car which ran third early on, as the No. 37 car was delayed by a drive-through penalty for track limits that left it down in tenth at the finish.

The downpour that arrived 30 minutes into the race resulted in the pole-winning No. 66 JMR Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Yasser Shahin, who ceded the lead to Al-Khelaifi early on, to lose control and get stuck in the gravel.

A similar mistake at the same corner for Antares Au in the No. 10 Manthey Porsche resulted in a heavy collision that left the stranded Corvette with heavy front-end damage, eliminating it on the spot, while also leaving the Porsche that won Saturday’s race on the road with what proved to be race-ending damage at the rear.

Also involved in that incident was the Racing Team Turkey Corvette of Tom van Rompuy, who sustained damage that required a lengthy trip to the garage to repair.

RESULTS: 4 Hours of Sepang