IRON LYNX TAKES FIRST FIA WEC PODIUM WITH LAMBORGHINI AT 6 HOURS OF SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS

Iron Lynx battled hard in the FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, with Claudio Schiavoni, Franck Perera and Matteo Cressoni clinching a memorable podium – the very first for the #60 crew in LMGT3. Elsewhere, the team also delivered podium finishes in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe and showed good pace in the French Rally Championship.

FIA World Endurance Championship

The iconic Ardennes venue was unseasonably warm and dry throughout the event, providing challenging conditions for the field, namely dealing with the heat and to look after the car around the 7-kilometre circuit.

A race of several interruptions provided opportunities to try different strategies. The #60 Lamborghini Huracán LMGT3 Evo 2 driven by Claudio Schiavoni, Matteo Cressoni and factory driver Franck Perera were all in action throughout the weekend.

Claudio qualified the car in 17th for the six-hour race and also took the start of the race. He managed the opening stint well, and held position before handing to Matteo. When there was a lengthy Safety Car period for barrier repairs during Matteo’s stint, the team opted to switch back to Claudio to complete his drive time and to go slightly off sequence before Matteo took back over.

Great work from Matteo and the team with the strategy allowed the #60 to climb up the order slightly. He handed over to Franck with just under two hours remaining, when a red flag was called for a massive crash down the Kemmel Straight.

READ MORE: Lamborghini Iron Lynx makes progress despite Spa DNF

This worked out well for the team. The clock was reset, effectively becoming a Safety Car period. With Franck behind the wheel, and cars ahead needing to make an extra pitstop, this brought the #60 firmly into the mix. Methodically working his way through the pack, he found himself in contention for a podium.

With a move on the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang, and issues for the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini, as the final pitstops took place the yellow #60 was in third place.

Franck’s pace was scintillating there on, and with 17 minutes to go he had clawed his way into the lead of the race, but needed a small amount of fuel on the final lap which dropped the car down to third. Despite that, the result marks the first podium in FIA WEC’s LMGT3 era with the Huracán.

Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe

Also in action at Spa was Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, with 52 cars in action across the weekend. Iron Lynx was once more there present with five cars. Qualifying was mixed for the team, with Giorgio Amati taking fourth in Q1 in car #42 the highest result.
 
At the start of the first race, there was plenty of action but the Iron Lynx quintet were managing the race very well. The #4 car of Joran Leneutre and Claude-Yves Gosselin moved up the order nicely to be in the mix for a podium, while the #41 of Stefan Bostandjiev and Pavel Lefterov worked into the top 10, and the #43 of Georgi Dimitrov and Edgar Maloigne worked into the top five and #49 of John Seale into seventh, while #42 of Giorgio and Jesse Salmenautio held fourth.
 
There was a Safety Car around the pitstop window, which shook the order up. Until the rest of the race, it was stop-start with Safety Car periods, leaving a one-lap dash to the line.
 
All of the Iron Lynx drivers carefully worked their way around several incidents and moved into strong positions. The #4 took a great third place finish, while #42 took third in its class in the final moments, challenging for second to the line. Car #41 took sixth after navigating the trouble, and #43 worked into fifth and #49 into seventh.
 
In Q2, #4 with Joran was the best-placed car in second. In the race, there was a Safety Car after the opening lap due to an incident. Racing resumed with 40 minutes of the scheduled 50 remaining. There was some damage for car #41, which forced it to pit from seventh place and retire.
 
The order remained until there was another red flag, just at the pit window opening time. With the mass of cars pitting, it was deemed unsafe to continue running and the red flag was shown. With the clock continuing to tick, due to the tight schedule, it was decided that the race could not continue and the result was called.
 
Claude-Yves and Joran clinched their second podium of the weekend with second, while car #42 took sixth and #49 seventh, while #43 was not given any sufficient opportunity to move up the order and took 19th while #41 was classified in 22nd.

French Rally Championship

Jean-Baptiste Franceschi maintained his strong start to the French Rally Championship with a sixth-place finish at the Rallye d’Antibes – Côte d’Azur.

Guided by co-driver Jules Escartefigue, Jean-Baptiste suffered a spin in one of the stages early on but was a model of consistency throughout the rally as he placed his Ford Fiesta Rally2 among the top-six times on almost every stage.

Over some of the world’s most famous and challenging stages such as Col de Turini, part of the iconic Monte Carlo Rally, sixth place was just reward for his efforts.

Team-mate Réhane Gany was on course for his best result of the season, comfortably inside the top-10 until unfortunately the 22-year-old was forced to retire on the ninth special stage with mechanical issues.

It was a highly eventful weekend of racing for us. We showcased that we are making significant progress with the Lamborghini Huracán LMGT3 Evo 2, and this excites us as we head to the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. We are disappointed to not come away with the win with the Iron Dames, who truly deserved it, but we are happy that the great performance from all three drivers in car #60 were rewarded with our first LMGT3 podium in FIA WEC. After the difficulties at the start of the season and with the performance we had in the first few races, if we had been told before the weekend that we would fight for victory and finish on the podium, we would never have believed it. It was also positive to see great pace in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe and in the French Rally Championship, too.

Iron Lynx Team Principal & CEO, Andrea Piccini