REBELLION Racing come away from the 1000 km of Hungary with ixed feelings.

Both Lola-Rebellions set the pace for the LMP1 category during theweekend, but in a race that saw an unusually high rate of attrition in thetop prototype category the overall podium for the race was filled by carsfrom the LMP2 class. Second in the LMP1 class for the #12REBELLION Racing Lola was a small reward for the team, but the #13car had to retire with a transmission breakage.

Both of the REBELLION Racing Lolas were very fast during the freepractice sessions, with the quickest two times during the third (night)session. In Qualifying, the REBELLIONs #13 and #12 were the fastestLMP1 cars in the field, in front of the Peugeot 908 HDI from Oreca, theSignature Lola-Aston Martin and the Beechdean-Mansell Zytek.

At the start of the race, Andrea Belicchi in car #13 overtook the polesitting LMP2 car of Strakka Racing to take the lead into the first corner,Neel Jani in the #12 Lola-Rebellion was third, sandwiching the OrecaPeugeot 908 HDI. In the early stages of the race Andrea Belicchi was sofast and precise in the traffic that the Oreca-Peugeot was never in aposition to try to overtake him. Neel Jani kept closely in touch with thetwo leaders ensuring that the gap was minimal as the first round of pitstops approached.

Just before the one hour mark, the #13 Lola-Rebellion pitted for its firststop and Jean-Christophe Boullion jumped into the cockpit of the Lolacoupé for a scheduled double stint. The Oreca-Peugeot 908 HDI wasable to stay out a little longer, thanks to low consumption of its dieselengine and thus took the lead of the race.

After the first round of pit stops were completed, the #13 car found itselfright on the tail of the Oreca-Peugeot, but minor collisions with traffichampered the chase and led to a slow puncture in a front tyre that forcedthe #13 car to come back to the pit for an unscheduled stop. As aprecaution, the team elected to thoroughly check the car for any otherdamage and during the pit stop Andrea Belicchi jumped back into thecar. Part way through his stint and going into turn one, the rear end ofthe car locked up and left Andrea stranded on the run-off asphalt on theside of the track. After several tries and advice via the radio from hisRace Engineer, Andrea was not able to obtain any drive through thetransmission and the team had no other choice than to retire the car.

The race of the sister #12 car was close to be ended earlier in the race.Just after having completed its first pit stop, a hose in the car’s coolingsystem split and the sudden leak of coolant went onto the left rear tyre inthe braking zone for turn 10, forcing Nico Prost into a spun. Fortunately,Nico was able to stop the car without touching the tyre wall and hemanaged to bring the car back to the pits for repair. After 24 minutes inthe garage, Nico was sent back out on track where from 32nd overall,Nicolas Prost and Neel Jani recovered to 8th overall and second in theLMP1 category.

The 1000 km of Hungaroring saw a lot of misfortunes for all the otherLMP1 teams and for the first time in Le Mans Series history, three LMP2cars claimed positions on the overall podium.REBELLION Racing is now focused on the Le Mans Series Finale from10 to 12 September, the 1000 km of Silverstone, were both of the team’sLola-Rebellions still have the possibility of claiming the championshiptitle.

Bart Hayden, REBELLION Racing Team Manager:

« On paper, secondin class looks like a good result, but with the pace that we had in the carsthis weekend, we’re far from satisfied. We had both cars on top of thetime sheets in Free Practice 3. We qualified our cars ahead of all theother LMP1s here, including the diesel powered Oreca-Peugeot. Wehad a dream-like first hour of the race with our cars leading the way, butin the end we only collected a class result. I’m happy for Nico and Neelthat they have scored good points and that we now have both cars instrong positions in the championship, but we’re disappointed not to getboth cars home and, with the pace we have shown we should have hadthem on the overall race podium too. There will be twice the number ofLMP1 cars at the final Le Mans Series race at Silverstone, so it will betough, but we should have confidence in the pace of our cars and ourdetermination will be strong for the best possible results. »