Nielsen Racing Wins Le Mans Cup Opener

Photo: Michelin Le Mans Cup

Nielsen Racing won the first Michelin Le Mans Cup round of the season at Monza on Saturday, with its Ligier JS P3 Nissan driven by Tony Wells and Colin Noble.

Wells started from second on the grid alongside the DKR Engineering Norma M30 Nissan of Jean Glorieux but co-driver Noble came out of the pits in the lead midway through the two-hour race.

He held onto the top spot for the remainder, helped by two penalties for pit stop infringements for the DKR car, allowing the Nielsen car to win by 52 seconds.

DKR finished second with the Spirit of Race and Graff Ligiers third and fourth.

Lee Mowle and Phil Keen won the GT3 class with their Mercedes-AMG GT3, after a late-race penalty dropped the Optimum Racing Audi R8 LMS out of contention.

The penalty came just six minutes before the checkered flag came out, while Joe Osborne was leading the class by 17 seconds over the Mercedes. 

Co-driver Flick Haigh started the race for Optimum and had taken the car into the lead after an early restart.

This was called for an incident between the KEO Racing Ligier of Mori Yoshiharu and the Ram Racing Mercedes of Ramon Vos which collided soon after the start of the race.

RESULTS: Monza

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.