For the second time this year the European Le Mans Series goes green, with just over six weeks until Le Mans as Inter Europol will start for the first time ever on pole. After a dramatic finish last time out in Barcelona, are we headed for another frantic final few laps? There’s only one way to find out…

The hour began under safety car, with proceedings eventually resuming five minutes into it, the track still sodden with rain. The racing was still anything but tentative though, as lapped cars tried desperately to get back onto the lead lap. Inter Europol’s #43 pitted for a driver swap, with Nick Yelloly taking over the car from Jakub Smiechowski and the #30 of Duqueine that so narrowly missed out on victory in the closing stages at Barcelona moved up to second place. The #35 LMP3 of Ultimate was then penalised for causing the contact that delayed the #88 Inter Europol LMP2 earlier in the race. That car now ran with a yellow and green nose, having swapped the damaged one out for a spare from Saturday’s Michelin Le Mans Cup race and also found itself under investigation for a pit stop infringement. 

The LMP2 Pro/Am lead battle then heated up, with Nielsen’s #27 defending from Rene Binder in the #77 Proton competition car.

Pit stops then came, with the order changing significantly as we enter the third hour. At the front, it’s the #9 Iron Lynx/Proton LMP2 leading from Nielsen’s #24 and in third it’s Vector sport’s #10. LMP3 is still led by the #68 of M Racing with the #12 WTM in second and CLX Motorsport’s #17. And in LMGT3 we still have Spirit of Race leading from Iron Lynx’s #63 and the #86 of GR Racing.

Halfway done, still two hours of action left here at Paul Ricard!
                      

thumbnail credit – United Autosports, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons