ELMS: Season-opening victory for Racing Engineering's Oreca

The Spanish team Racing Engineering took its first European Le Mans Series victory at 4 Hours of Le Castellet at Circuit Paul Ricard, the first round of the 2018 European Le Mans Series season. The winners in the #24 Oreca 07 are three French drivers Olivier Pla, Norman Nato and Paul Petit.

After four hours of racing, less than eight seconds covered the top three cars. Matthieu Vaxiviere, Francois Perrodo and Loic Duval finished second in the #33 TDS Racing’s Oreca. Pierre Ragues, Nicolas Jamin and Nelson Panciatici, the drivers of the #29 Duqueine Engineering’s Oreca, completed a podium.

Race winners Norman Nato, Paul Petit and Olivier Pla

A victory in the LMP3 class went to the #15 RLR MSport Ligier with Rob Garofall, John Farano and Job van Uitert as drivers. Yvan Muller Racing’s #19 crew take the silver while Eurointernational’s #11 crew finished third.

In the LMGTE class, the winners are Miguel Molina, Alex MacDowall and Liam Griffin in the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE. They defeated Proton Competition’s #88 Porsche 911 RSR, driven by Matteo Cairoli, Gianluca Roda and Giorgio Roda. Fabio Babini, Riccardo Pera and Raymond Narac completed GTE podium in the #80 Ebimotors Porsche.