Pierre Ragues has finished his tenth participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with an eighth placed result with the Larbre Competition team.

 

Pierre excelled during each of his stints during the race, setting lap times among the fastest in the GTE-Am class. He felt at ease in the #50 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and got the most out of the package.

 

Having started the race on Saturday afternoon in wet conditions under the safety car, Pierre was on impressive form in all of his stints over the 24 hours. He was regularly among the quickest in GTE-Am and showcased his top-three potential.

 

Unfortunately, Le Mans had a few other ideas. After successfully finishing his stints on Saturday evening, the team needed to change the aircon belt, which they did with total professionalism to minimise time loss. 

 

As the safety car was deployed again later in the evening, the team cleverly used the opportunity to change the brakes. The early morning shifts were shared between all three drivers as the team focused on the top-five.

 

However, the team incurred a stop/go penalty for an infringement during Yamagishi’s earlier stint, when he was speeding in a yellow flag zone. The penalty was taken during Belloc’s stint and cost around three minutes of time.

 

Pierre took over once again as Sunday dawned, continuing his previous strong form. He showed impressive consistency and set the team’s fastest lap of the race. With five-and-a-half hours to go, drama struck when Yamagishi spun when coming back to the pits, damaging the rear-end of the car. The team had to carry out repairs on the rear wing and diffuser, which they did expertly, but the time loss was around 47 minutes in total, which dropped the team down the order.

 

Pierre had a final chance to show his competitiveness in the final stint towards the end of the race. Unfortunately, he picked up a slow puncture, forcing him to pit. The anticipated stop meant that a final splash was required in the closing laps.  

 

Nonetheless, he cemented a top-eight class finish in his tenth Le Mans. The result gives the team a top-three position in the WEC classification, with double points on offer for this race.

 

Pierre said: “Although the end result is quite disappointing, I have really enjoyed this Le Mans week. It’s been challenging with the mixed weather conditions, but driving on this track evokes special feelings for me. I was pleased to be able to show my pace in the fantastic Corvette. The Larbre team was on incredible form this week, and particularly in the race. We had a few issues to deal with as a team and the mechanics dealt with them so professionally and calmly, which minimised the time we lost. Unfortunately, Yutaka’s spin this morning caused quite a bit of rear end damage, so we lost a lot of time them, but this is a team effort. I will take lots of positives from this event: I was really confident on all of my stints and was among the quickest in the GTE-Am class. I was also very happy with the tyres, whether on the wets or the slicks that we used for most of the race. We showed our potential this weekend. We worked together very well, and it was an honour for me to represent Larbre and Corvette at this year’s Le Mans. We scored valuable points for our WEC campaign, and we can head to the next round in Germany feeling very confident in ourselves. I’d like to extend huge thanks to my partners GroupAuto, Sparco and Ellip6 for their support, and to Yutaka, Jean-Philippe, everyone at Larbre and Corvette for the opportunity to share my tenth Le Mans with such a great bunch of people – and a competitive car!”