High hopes ahead of ELMS 4 Hours of Le Castellet

Proton Competition travel to Circuit Paul Ricard for the second round of the European Le Mans Series, the 4 Hours of Le Castellet (2 to 4 May). The team will be looking to build on a promising start to the season in Barcelona.

At the head of the field, Jonas Ried, Macéo Capietto and Matteo Cairoli will be hoping to build on the positives from the Barcelona round, where the trio showed the same pace as the leaders and posted the second-fastest lap time.

“We kicked off the season pretty well in Barcelona,” said Cairoli. “We qualified on the front row, which was a great starting point for the race. Unfortunately, Sunday didn’t go as planned. Our driver line-up for this race is the same as last year, so the experience is there. We want to improve on our finish in Le Castellet in 2024 and are targeting the podium. Our first aim for the weekend is to dial in the set-up and look at what we can achieve in the race.”

Giorgio Roda, Bent Viscaal and René Binder will also be looking to make a step forward in France after just missing out on a podium in the season-opener. Expectations are high among the #77 Oreca drivers ahead of the weekend, not least because of their second-place finish in last year’s edition of the race. Alessio Picariello, Claudio Schiavoni and Matteo Cressoni will be teaming up once again in the #60 Porsche 911 GT3 R competing in the LMGT3 category.

The 5.7-kilometre circuit in southern France is a regular fixture on the ELMS calendar, with Proton Competition having raced there on no fewer than 15 occasions and every year since 2015. One of the most dominant features of the track is the infamous 1.8-kilometre Mistral Straight, where cars spend half a minute at full throttle before braking for the formidable right-hander at Signes.

All the action begins on Friday 2 May with first Practice, followed by the second Practice and Qualifying on Saturday. The race goes green at 12:00 local time on Sunday. Fans can follow the action live via the ELMS YouTube channel.

Schedule

Friday 2 May
11:00 – 12:30 Practice 1

Saturday 3 May
10:10 – 11:40 Practice 2
14:20 – 15:50 Qualifying

Sunday 4 May
12:00 – 16:00 Race

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Copyright: Proton Competition (Paola Depalmas)