Team Virage travelled to the new French F1 Grand prix circuit, Le Castellet, for the 3rd round of the 2018 VdeV Endurance Series.
As in Barcelona, the team came with two cars, numbers 94 and 95. While Falchero and Caouette were back on the 94, they were joined by the Polish driver Tomasz Blicharski. On the 95, Enqvist and Rattenbury remained at the wheel, joined by Spanish CER Champion Philippe Valenza.
In qualifying session, Falchero placed his Ligier JSP3 in 6th position, while Enqvist didn’t do better than 13th, out of a 28 cars field. A good start from both drivers saw both Virage cars quickly running in the top 5, with the 94 fighting for the lead while Enqvist made the show with impressive overtakings on his way to P3.
Shortly after the first hour, Falchero handled his car to Blicharski, while Enqvist were replaced by Rattenbury. Both cars remained in P3 and P4 until close to the second hour, when Blicharski had to pit for fuel and dropped out of the Top 10. Rattenbury, on his side, was fighting hard with TFT’s Norma, resisting to the Nº72 until his legal handicap drive-through.
With a bit more than one hour to go, Blicharski pitted and Caouette took the wheel. The young Canadian driver immediately got into pace and was on his way to a good result, when a contact with a lapped car sent him into a spin. He would eventually crossed the finish line in 12th position.
On the 95 car, Rattenbury handed the wheel to Spaniard rookie Valenza. Unfortunately, Valenza injured his wrist on a hard hit with a kerb in the beginning of his run. Suffering a sprain, the young driver from Madrid hanged on for more than one hour in order to bring back the car in 8th position under the chequered flag.
Julien Gerbi, Team Manager :
« This week-end final results are a bit frustrating. We showed we had the pace to fight in front but we didn’t manage to concretise it. We will analyse deeply all the informations we have to see where to improve, so we and our drivers will come back stronger in the next race. »