A hot Saturday afternoon at Buriram, Thailand, saw the Round 3 of the Asian Le Mans Series being controlled from the first hour by the No. 22 Ligier JS P2 from United Autosports, with Paul Di Resta and Phil Hanson delivering a stellar performance, with the LMP3 class win coming as a bonus for the Anglo-American team.
The green flag came with the Algarve Pro Racing cars working to keep the domination as the No. 24 Ligier was leading the No. 25 one, though the No. 22 United Autosports Ligier found its way to second place on pure persistence from Phil Hanson, and so he did to achieve the lead a while later. The No. 65 Viper NIZA Ligier was suprising everyone by sitting fourth overall and lead the LMP3 class, though a puncture put them out of the class lead battle.
Eventually United Autosports took control of the prototype classes before the first hour, though both the No. 22 Ligier JS P2 and the No. 2 Ligier JS P3 still had company behind them. In the GT class, the No. 66 TSRT Audi took quite the advantage of the first minutes of racing and was dominating it.
With an hour and a half of racing, the first full course yellow came as the No. 5 Red River TF Sport Aston Martin spun and stopped in the gravel, barely avoiding major contact with the barriers. After a few minutes, the car was rescued and sent to the team garage, with the green flag coming back after it.
Things stand unchanged in the prototype classes, apart from the rise of the No. 35 Panis-Barthez Ligier in the LMP2 ranks, appearing in third overall, and in the GT class the No. 11 CarGuy Ferrari was going for another recovery drive as they got the class lead.
With a bit less than an hour and a half to go, the No. 24 APR Ligier, sitting in second overall, met the No. 11 CarGuy Ferrari, GT class leader, and the contact sent both cars to a spin when Andrea Pizzitola missed miserably the braking point at Turn 4. Though the No. 11’s class lead wouldn’t be affected and there were no damages, the No. 24 had its winning hopes badly reduced. CarGuy Racing still had to deal with a drive through penalty due to pit stop infringement, though the lead was held.
All class leaders were firm in their positions during the final hour, and while the GT and LMP3 leaders were gaining on track, the No. 22 United Autosports Ligier was combining on track performance with some misfortune of the No. 24 APR Ligier as a late splash and go was needed.
Even the No. 22 couldn’t avoid a late splash, but they were so comfortable in the lead that the overall win was just a question of time. The No. 24 APR Ligier salvaged the second place while the No. 35 Panis-Barthez Ligier completed the overall and the LMP2 podiums, though it could have had a shot at second considering the woeful final hour of the No. 24.
The No. 2 United Autosports Ligier took LMP3 honors and brought more celebrations to the team garage, and despite the troubles of the final hour, the No. 11 CarGuy Ferrari achieved another GT class victory.
The Hanson/Di Resta pairing now has 62 points and is the strongest favorite for the title, the Smiechowski/Hippe duo lead in LMP3 with 62 points against 54 from Buncombe/Grist/Boyd, and in GT, the CarGuy trio with Calado/Cozzolino/Kimura dominates with 76 points, being also by far in the best position to claim the class title in the next round.
The final round of the 2018/2019 season will be the 4 Hours of Sepang on February 24th.
PHOTO: Asian Le Mans Series
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