The Saturday morning race on the full La Sarthe circuit at Le Mans provided as much drama as the first encounter on Thursday evening. It was victory for the no25 Cool Racing Ligier in the LMP3 class and the no55 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3.
A Safety Car period in the final 20 minutes of the race, to recover two stranded cars and repair the tyre barrier at Mulsanne Corner, meant the entire field were bunched up and waiting to be released for a two-lap dash to the chequered flag.
Mads Siljehaug was leading in the no76 Reiter Engineering Ligier after Freddie Hunt’s stellar drive in the first half of the race. The Norwegian driver had the pole sitter no11 WTM Racing Ligier of Leonard Weiss right behind him, with Duncan Tappy in the no25 Cool Racing Ligier in third.
When the race went green Siljehaug got a good getaway, with Tappy passing Weiss for second place.The British driver then caught and passed the Reiter Ligier into the second chicane to take the lead, which he held until the chequered flag.
It was the second Road To Le Mans victory for Michael Benham and Duncan Tappy after they won in 2018 for Lanan Racing. The pair join a very select group of six drivers who have won the race twice since 2016.
Weiss was putting a lot of pressure on Siljehaug but was unable to find a way past and at the chequered flag it was the no76 Reiter Engineering Ligier than took a well-deserved second place on the podium.
In the GT3 class the restart saw the no55 GMB Motorsport Honda of Kasper Jensen and the no34 Team WRT Audi of Maxime Robin side by side for most of the lap.Robin tried to take the lead several times with the cars running door handle to door handle in a fantastic display of race craft.
The battle for third was equally tight with the no46 Ebimotors Porsche of race 1 winner Fabio Babini and the no99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin of Valentin Hasse-Clot vying for the final podium position, with the Aston Martin getting the upper hand on the final lap of the race.
Kasper Jensen and Kristian Poulsen stood on the top step of the podium, with Poulsen adding a RTLM victory to the two 24 Hours of Le Mans class wins in 2009 and 2014.
CLICK HERE for the result from Road To Le Mans Race 2
Michael Benham – no25 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320-Nissan: “It’s difficult to describe the feeling, it’s just fantastic. I have my family here today, so it's fantastic to have them here. It's fantastic to do it for all the guys in the Cool Racing team, for Nico, for Alex, for Julien our engineer today and Max who's my engineer normally in ELMS. Just a massive team effort and nobody can push any harder to try and achieve this. It's just thanks to all of their hard work and we couldn't do it without them.”
Duncan Tappy – no25 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320-Nissan: “It wasn't particularly as wild as yesterday for me. Obviously, we had a lot of laps under safety car, which meant we only had two racing laps. So, you had to think a little bit on your feet.
“I didn't get the best of restarts, but I had a little plan in my head and luckily it played into my hands. To be back here again, our second win together. Last time we raced together, it wasn't quite the happy ending we wanted it to be but this this makes it all better. Thanks to Nico thanks to Alex at Cool for having me. It's been a pleasure.”
Kasper H Jensen – no55 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3: “Amazing. It has always been a dream for me to step on the podium here but to do twice this weekend it's an amazing feeling. Hopefully we can do it in the 24-Hour race someday.”
Kristian Poulsen – no55 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3: “There was really a lot of action. We had a lucky race today. In my stint, actually, it was not so much excellent. But in the end, they gave me all the slow zones and all this. So, they had to clean up the track before they could go racing again. It was really exciting at the end, and I almost couldn’t watch it.”
