Le Mans Brings the Goods in Pivotal Championship Milestone

While the Safety Car was only deployed once on this occasion, don’t mistake that for a lack of drama; this was a warzone on the Sarthe River.

Here is your Round 4 race review of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series from Le Mans!

Familiar Names Stake Their Claim in Qualifying

If there is one really standout dynamic to the new GT3 tyre model, it’s how long-form qualifying sessions play out. Rather than the one-and-done style of old that is still seen in more sensitive tyre sets like the Gen 3 Supercar, it takes significantly more time for the GT3 to wriggle its way into an optimal window.

Particularly at Le Mans, that means the best way to go is fueling the car to run through the entirety of the 20-minute session. That comes out to just four timed laps to set your place on the grid for the majority of the field, with the exception of the lucky few at the top of the pitlane who could manage five laps.

On the first run, Damon Woods of the championship leading Eclipse Simsports #56 emerged fastest with a 3:52.402. Woods’ teammate Zach Rattray-White would sit the Eclipse #17 in 3rd, with Byron Pearce splitting the pair for Arete eSports in provisional 2nd just two tenths off Woods.

Lewis Greathead got his afternoon off to a strong start in the Vermillion Esports #101 to put his McLaren in provisional 4th place, with his teammate Josh Purwein placing the #228 in the Top 10 as well. 

The order tumbled with a number of cars either invalidating laps with the countless slow-down penalties on offer, or just not improving. A number of cars would be forced to back out of their laps from incidents too, including Byron Phillips spinning the Eclipse #69 into the barriers before Tertre Rouge – then Greg Patrick and Benjamin Brooke beaching themselves in the middle of Porsche Curves. 

Vermillion Esports would fight tooth and nail to upset the Eclipse momentum at the tail end of qualifying, with Josh Purwein holding the top of the table until Damon Woods pipped the #228 by just over a tenth of a second on his last run – claiming pole position in the process. Lewis Greathead would put the #101 in 4th, and Zak Kerr would claw the #5 into 9th place.

Despite a nightmare first half of qualifying for Byron Phillips, he would put the Eclipse #69 on the second row of the grid. Zach Rattray-White would not punch in another valid lap after his first timed run on cold tyres, which was only enough for 12th. Reece Wakefield would continue Antic

Motorsports’ consistent season-long improvement, delivering the #994 its best starting position of the season in 10th. 

Vendaval Simracing, Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter and One Performance Racing #51 were separated by a tenth in 5th, 6th and 7th respectively.

Le Mans Claims First Victims on Lap 1

Unlike the single-file gentlemen’s agreement seen in official races at this venue, it would be two wide to start Round 4 of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series. Green flag at Le Mans!

With cars bustling through the opening chicane two-wide, you could start your own economy with the amount of paint being traded door to door. But it was more than a bit of paint for Arete, who picked up some gnarly front bumper damage from hitting the rear of the Vendaval Simracing McLaren at Turn 3. That left them tumbling down the order with excessive drag leading to a straight-line speed deficit of as much as 15kph.

That may have caused some frustration for the Arete crowd, but there was utter heartbreak elsewhere. Coming into Indianapolis for the first time, Lewis Greathead would lose traction and overcorrect into the tyre wall on the left side of the track, leaving the #101 with significant damage that was only just able to limp back to the lane.

Tommy Wallace of the TSR #222 would find himself in double trouble. First being hit by the Trans Tasman Racing #22 after moving on the brakes at Arnage, then looped by the same car on the stretch leading up to Porsche Curves.

Running Order Settles as Woods Darts Away

Cold tyres and early nerves breed mistakes and slow-down penalties on opening laps at Le Mans, which meant the order took longer than usual to settle into a representative state. 

One driver that took no time to settle into a rhythm was Damon Woods. Despite slipstream making a gap difficult to build at this track, the Eclipse #56 was off into the distance building a cushion that only expanded to the rest of the field across the stint. Kobi Williams would also pedal the #69 car quick enough to escape the slipstream of the pack fighting for 3rd place.

That pack would consist of three McLarens; Jake Burton piloting the Vendaval #27, followed by Jacob O’Reilly and Zak Kerr in the Vermillion #228 and #5. Jamie Christison would be tailed by the two OPR Mustangs of Stefan Mccartain and Adam Hughes, and Reece Wakefield in the Antic McLaren. That bundle of cars would build a gap back to the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car piloted by Sam Blacklock.

Pit Stops Reveal Fuel Savers and Burners

The OPR #51 was the first of the front runners to pit. They were accompanied by the Eclipse #69, Vendaval #27 and OPR #606 as the only Top 10 runners to not manage the extra lap.

With everything straightened out two laps later, there was a clear jumbling of position with different fuel loads taken onboard. While the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car short fueled to put themselves from 10th to 6th, the OPR #51 had dropped from 4th to 7th; importantly without anyone to slipstream with. Vendaval and the OPR #606 also lost one position each, but were grouped closely together.

With that, the Eclipse #17 moved themselves into the Top 5. The Vermillion #5 and #228 would swap positions in the pit lane to return the favour of fuel saving the #228 lended in the first stint, maintaining 3rd and 4th with no loss of time.

Championship Scrap Heats Up

Vermillion and Eclipse have traded blows all season at the front of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series, and this time it boiled over on the approach to the halfway mark of the race.

When Josh Purwein went wide at the exit of the Porsche Curves to award himself a slow-down penalty, he would try to serve the bulk of it on the run down to the chicane section at the end of the lap. While he would serve most of it on the straight, Purwein still had some to serve through the tight-and-twisty’s. He would try to finish it while off the racing line, but when that line converged to one at the last two corners, that left Byron Phillips with nowhere to go. 

Phillips would make contact with Purwein twice, spinning the Vermillion #228 up and over the curbs, dropping them to 9th place.

As the second stint unfolded, Harrison Lillas, Zach Rattray-White and Josh Anderson would work together with bump draft to claw in the deficit ahead to the Vermillion #5 of Zak Kerr. Lillas would eventually pull the trigger on passing Kerr for 2nd place, and would peel into the lane for the second pit stop of the afternoon at the end of the same lap having short-fueled the first stop. Josh Anderson would follow Lillas into the lane for Vendaval.

The Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car would short fuel again to find themselves in 2nd place with much larger gaps behind than prior to the stops. But there was another kink in the road for this story just yet. 

Safety Car, Safety Car, Safety Car!

That was the call from Race Control after the Iridium Sim Sports #268 found themselves in the fence at Porsche Curves. The field that had broken itself up from the once chaotic start was now going to be bunched together again with just under an hour to go.

The whole field would pit with the fuel margin for making it home being deadly narrow. It was achievable, but it would essentially require the entire field to cooperatively save.

And so, with a lap for people to conspire and see what others were doing, it eventually became clear that very few were saving to avoid a splash-and-dash. This was an all out qualifying run to the end with one short stop remaining.

The Eclipse #56 and #17 were now reunited in 1st and 2nd. With the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car forced to load more fuel into the car than others, they would drop to 4th behind the Vermillion #5. 

At the first of the Muslanne chicanes, Sebastian Varndell would extend track limits and be forced to serve a slow-down penalty. That allowed Harrison Lillas and Josh Anderson to vault past into 3rd and 4th, before another mistake from Varndell at Indianapolis saw him drop to 7th on the same lap.

As focus faded late into the afternoon, more mistakes were drawn out from the front runners. Josh Purwein was forced to concede 5th to Adam Hughes after cutting too much at the first chicane, then Harrison Lillas bowled wide at Tertra Rouge a lap later to concede his position to not only Hughes and Purwein, but Stefan Mccartain too. 

On that same lap, Purwein and Lillas were able to bump draft and coordinate passes on the OPR pairing to get back to 4th and 5th by the time they got to Porsche Curves.

Tense Fight to the Flag for Top 10 Positions

The Top 5 runners had broken gaps to one another on the run home. But there was an intense fight that was unfolding from 6th all the way to 12th. 

Sebastian Varndell would lead that train in the Vermillion #5, hotly tailed by the OPR #606 of Adam Hughes who pulled the trigger to pinch 6th with around 25 minutes to go. When Bradley Rattew of the Orbit Drop Bear Neptune car followed suit a lap later, chaos ensued behind.

Varndell quickly found himself under pressure from Coby Jones at the second Mulsanne chicane but managed to hold position. Behind, Dean Mackay, Stefan Mccartain and Coby Jones ran three-wide into the Mulsanne hairpin. Mackay would emerge ahead for now, but would lose both positions by the time the battlepack reached Porsche Curves. 

On the last lap, that fight would boil over when Mackay grabbed the rear left corner of Stefan Mccartain into Indianapolis sending the OPR #51 into the gravel trap. Mackay was handed a 15-second post-race penalty for the incident.

Three-peat for Damon Woods and Kody Deith!

Pole, Fastest Lap, and Race Victory. That’s three milestones on one day, and three wins in a row for the unstoppable pairing in the Eclipse Simsports #56. It was a truly pivotal result in the championship that doesn’t mathematically rule them champions, but may as well with this run of form they have shown of late.

Zach Rattray-White wheeled home the Eclipse #17 with a surgical drive up the order following a shaky qualifying that saw his car start from 12th on the grid. That brings together the leading Eclipse pairing in the championship order that had fallen away slightly after the infamous La Source incident from Spa.

Josh Anderson piled on the pressure for Vendaval Simracing in hopes of pinching 2nd, but ultimately came home with an impressive 3rd place. That has been enough to promote them to 5th in the standings.

It was certainly a “what could have been” afternoon for Vermillion Esports, but they will be pleased to have brought home the #228 in a strong 4th place to retain 2nd in the standings. Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter, Summit Sim Sports White, Arete eSports #79, One Performance Racing #606, Orbit Drop Bear Neptune and Vermillion Esports #5 rounded out the Top 10.

Just two rounds remain in this year's GTPro Invitational calendar, and both will be hosted at Australian icons. It’s The Bend for Round 5, and Mount Panorama for Round 6. 

Don’t miss the next round of action, join us next time live on SimSpeed on the night of October 17.