The deluge was expected given the weather forecasts in Malaysia, and it was the rain which decided the outcome of the second race of the 4 Hours of Sepang, opening round of the 2024-2025 Asian Le Mans Series .
Neutralized by the race management under safety car regime 56′ from the end, with weather conditions clearly deteriorating, the race was then placed under red flag regime 47′ from the checkerboard. At 10:46 a.m. French time, the race management finally decided not to restart the debates.
Enough to offer success to Algarve Pro Racing and the No. 25 Oreca 07 of Malthe Jakobsen, Michael Jensen and Valerio Rinicella, leaders at the time of the interruption, after having perfectly managed the change in weather and the subsequent tire changes.
However, it was AF Corse who led the start of the race with an excellent Jeremy Clarke (Oreca n°50), the latter taking the advantage in the first hour over Giorgio Roda (Oreca n°22 – Proton Competition) before losing himself. build a solid lead.
But it was Pure Rxcing which then set the pace with Harry King, who put the #91 Oreca back in the lead in the second hour of the race before being neutralized under VSC then safety car, to clean up debris coming from the Oreca No. 30 – RD Limited littering the track.
The moment also chosen by the rain to appear on the Malaysian track, several competitors taking advantage of the neutralization to use the adapted tires.
At the restart a little less than 1h30 from the checkerboard, Louis Delétraz (Oreca n°91 – Pure Rxcing) leads the peloton ahead of Matthieu Vaxiviere (Oreca n°83 – AF Corse). The Frenchman did not wait long to take control of the race with 1h20 to go, before Laurents Hörr (Oreca n°3 – DKR Engineering) overtook the Oreca n°83 for the lead of the race. .
But it was necessary to keep the slick tires since Malthe Jakobsen (Oreca n°25 – Algarve Pro Racing) made the right choice by not passing the rain and found herself at the front. Matthieu Vaxiviere and Louis Delétraz are forced to return to the pitlane to put on slicks again.
However, the rain intensified at the last hour’s corner and forced the competitors to switch to or switch to rain tires. After this disjointed sequence, it is Jakoben who emerges in the lead 23″ ahead of Tristan Vautier (RD Limited) and Alex Quinn (Oreca n°20 – APR). Tom Dillmann follows in fourth position after losing time at his stop with a Recalcitrant right rear wheel.
The race is finally neutralized, confirming the success of Algarve Pro Racing ahead of RD Limited, with the No. 30 Oreca of Tristan Vautier, James Allen and Fred Poordad, winners yesterday in race 1. A more than convincing debut for Romain’s structure Dumas.
The podium is completed by the second APR car, with Alex Quinn, Kriton Lendoudis and Olli Caldwell.
In LMP3, double for Ultimate with the success of Stéphane Lémeret, Matteo Quintarelli and Bence Valint (Ligier JS P320 n°35) ahead of High Class Racing (Anders Fjördbach and Mark Patterson) and RLR M Sport (Nick Adcock, Ian Guilera and James Dayson ).
Winward Racing emerges victorious in GT with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO n°81 of Jules Gounon, Gabriele Piana and Rinat Salikhov. Forced to abandon yesterday, the Porsche 911 GT3 R n°10 – Manthey d’Antares Au, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler takes 2nd place ahead of Davide Rigon, Massimiliano Wiser and Manuel Franco (Ferrari 296 GT3 n°28 – AF Corse ).
The classification for race 2 is HERE
