BE Motorsport takes LMP3 fifth place at Paul Ricard
The 4 hours of Paul Ricard, which was held in Le Castellet last weekend, was the third round of the VdeV series and BE Motorsport entered its Ligier-Nissan JSP3 LMP3 once again. Javier Ibrán, Mathijs Bakker and Toni Castillo brought a commendable fifth place in class home. BE Motorsport continues making steady progress with its LMP3 prototype.
BE Motorsport entered the round three of the pan-European VdeV series, devoted to LMP3 and GT cars, with its Ligier-Nissan JSP3 LMP3. BE Motorsport´s trio of drivers Javier Ibrán, Mathijs Bakker and Toni Castillo achieved another remarkable result at the wheel of the Onroak Automotive-built car.
BE Motorsport completed 54 laps and set the fifth fastest time of the day in practice, equaling their performance in qualifying later. The grid, which is determined by the average fastest laps of the drivers in each car, saw the white Ligier starting from the fifth row with a time of 2:07.062. After two races at Montmeló and Le Mans-Bugatti, the experienced trio moved up to second in class and ran in the top five overall just as the halfway was reached. But gearbox issues and a drive through penalty, due to a non accurate interpretation of regulations by marshals, dashed their chances by losing five laps. Despite they were ruled out of podium contention, the car of BE Motorsport still took the checkered flag fifth in class.
“As much as our race weekend was not as we hoped, our fifth place was still positive. We are really proving ourselves and taking the right steps with our Ligier. From an aerodynamic point of view, the car is quite demanding, but we are closing the gap on much more experienced teams with this kind of prototypes. We ran in second place but several issues cost us valuable time in the pits”, Ibrán underlined. For Motorland Aragón, Ibrán stresses that “I expect better results in Alcañiz. I think we will able to get the most out of the Ligier at Motorland, which is a key circuit for endurance teams when they are working on setups for Le Mans. So, I´m sure we will have another enjoyable driving experience there!”.
The venue at Motorland Aragón will take place on the first weekend of July.