French endurance racer Pierre Ragues has enjoyed a generally encouraging start to his 11th Le Mans 24 Hours, with the #35 Signatech Alpine Matmut crew fighting inside the top-six after the first quarter of the race. 

 

Nelson Panciatici was on starting duties in the Alpine A470, and had a series of good opening laps to move into the top-six. In extremely hot conditions, the first hour saw plenty of action as the race settled into a rhythm. 

 

Handing over to André Negrão in the second hour, which was dominated by a slow zone period, the team continued to maintain their pace. Negrão was forced to pit unexpectedly in the third hour with a fuel sensor issue, losing 1m11s in total. 

 

As the race entered its fourth hour, Pierre took over the reins inside the top-six as he embarked on an ambitious and impressive four-stint run. He was immediately on the pace and set times among the quickest in class, as he set about making up ground. 

 

Unfortunately, his strong stints were undone during a pit lane incident, when a competitor braked heavily as he entered the pits. While monitoring his own speed under the pitlane limit, Pierre sustained front-end damage that needed changing during the stop. The team reacted quickly, losing just 30 seconds. 

 

As Pierre set out on his fourth stint, under a lengthy slow zone period, he resumed the race firmly intent on making up more positions. In his final stint, he pushed the engine kill switch mistakenly after becoming frustrated stuck behind a slower car in a slow zone period, which cost an additional 56 seconds. 

 

With the equivalent of a World Endurance Championship race completed, Pierre handed over to Panciatici fifth in LMP2 and ninth overall. 

 

Pierre commented: “We have had a decent start to the race, with some encouraging pace and a few frustrating moments. We are still at just over one-quarter race distance, and we have shown the pace needed to gain more positions. Nelson and André put us in a good position from which we could develop as the race unfolded. I was generally happy with my quadruple stint, and particularly with the pace I showed on track. The conditions are extremely hot but the Alpine A470 has been very responsive and we’ve been able to push when we need to. There have been a couple of frustrating incidents, which have lost us time but overall, we’re establishing ourselves in the early phase of this fantastic race.”