BUT NOT THE HOPED FOR GLORY
After good performances in free practice and the pole position secured by Neel Jani,the REBELLION Racing team had high hopes of victory at the 6 hours of LeCastellet, the first round of the 2011 Le Mans Series.
In the early laps, Neel Jani, driving the Lola-Toyota #12 kept the lead and quicklyextended an advantage over the next car. But after half an hour of the race, Neelfound himself unable to select any gears and the car was stuck in 5th. The Lola-Toyota was forced to come back to the pits to have the gearshift air compressorreplaced. During the repair, Nicolas Prost took over behind the wheel and the carrejoined 12 laps behind the leader. Despite repeatedly posting the fastest lap,
Nicolas and Neel were unable to catch up to the lead lap, although they had a goodcomeback drive from 28th to 7th position and in the process reduced the deficit by 2laps to the victorious Pescarolo car. Nicolas Prost was credited with the fastest lap of1'47''465 (vs 1'48''367 for Emmanuel Collard in the Pescarolo #16 race winning car).Starting from the third position on the grid, the Lola-Toyota #13 car was also struckby bad luck. Jean-Christophe Boullion had a spin in the first racing lap when thedriver’s side door unexpectedly came open. After pitting to get the door closed, thecar rejoined, and Jean-Christophe Boullion began to recover ground. But he had tostop again when the door came open again, and some time was lost in trying to moreeffectively secure the door.
Jean-Christophe Boullion and Andrea Belicchi attacked relentlessly throughout therest of the race rising to second place by the half way stage, two laps behind theleader. The Lola-Toyota #13 took the chequered flag in 2nd place, one lap behind thewinning Pescarolo.
Whilst pleased to be on the podium, REBELLION Racing felt some disappointmentthat the pace shown by both their cars didn’t convert to the hoped for victory in therace. But at least the consolation is that both of the Swiss team’s Lola-Toyota carsfinished on the LMP1 podium, scoring important points for the championship.
