For the second round of the 2010 Le Mans Series, Rebellion Racing was up againststrong opposition. In preparation for Le Mans, Peugeot and Audi had each committedthree « works » cars for the Spa race. Starting from the fifth and sixth rows of thegrid, the two Lola-Rebellions showed very good pace in the first hour. On a trickytrack after showers during the first lap of the race, Jean-Christophe Boullion and NeelJani reached third and fifth positions, joining in the fight between the Audi andPeugeot cars.
With a drying track, the diesel cars restored their supremacy over the entire fieldmonopolizing the top five positions. Therefore, the Rebellion Racing team focused onthe battle for the first petrol car position.
Two hours after the start, the race was red flagged for about half an hour for safetyreasons, following a general power failure at the circuit.
At the time of the stoppage, the Rebellion #13 car was ranked in sixth place overalland the first petrol car while the sister #12 car was eighth.
The race was restarted at 14:10. The team took advantage of the restart under thesafety car to make driver changes. Nicolas Prost took the wheel after Neel Jani in#12 and Andrea Belicchi followed Jean-Christophe Boullion in the cockpit of #13.While battling with the "008" car, Nicolas Prost was forced to park up his Lola-Rebelion off the track at La Source hairpin, the unfortunate victim of gearboxtroubles.
After the fourth hour of the race, Andrea Belicchi had to stop in the pits to fix anelectrical problem. The short delay did not affect his lead in the petrol cars unofficialranking.
At the start of the fifth hour of the race, taking advantage of a new neutralization, theSwiss team proceeded to the last driver change, Jean-Christophe Boullion retakingthe wheel of #13.
A few minutes from the end of the race, the Lola-Rebellion halted on the finish linesuffering gearbox selection difficulties. Jean-Christophe managed to complete a finallap and took the checkered flag to be classified in the results.
The Lola-Rebellion #13 driven by Jean-Christophe Boullion and Andrea Belicchi wasfinally ranked first LMP1 petrol car and sixth in class.
After the 1000 km of Spa, and still with three races to go, Rebellion Racing is sittingin second position in the Le Mans Series championship. Jean-Christophe Boullionand Andrea Belicchi are third in the Drivers' classification.
REBELLION Racing Team Manager Bart Hayden commented :
« After this week-end, the team is now in a good position for the Le Mans Serieschampionship and that is the main goal of our season. The race was far from easy forus today because of the factory diesel cars and the troubles we had with both cars.This race was also part of our preparation for next month's Le Mans 24 Hours. Themechanical problems we had today will be fully investigated and addressed, so thatshould help us to improve our cars in time for Le Mans ».
