RD Limited Win Sepang Thriller by Narrowest of Margins

Endurance racing debutant team RD Limited got the weekend off to a great start with Fred Poordad, James Allen and Tristan Vautier winning the opening race of the 2024/25 Asian Le Mans Series in Sepang.  The early part of the race saw four Safety Car periods but then it settled down and some great racing ensued throughout the field.

The race went down to the wire with Vautier fending off a determined challenge by Matthieu Vaxiviere in the no83 AF Corse Oreca-Gibson.  Vaxiviere closed the gap in the dying minutes of the race, passing Vautier on the final lap, only for the RD Limited Oreca to retake the lead on the final corner.  The two cars were side by side as they crossed the line, with just 0.055s the winning margin after four hours of racing.

The LMP3 battle was won by the no35 Ultimate Ligier-Nissan, with Matteo Quintarelli bringing the car home just ahead of the no49 High Class Racing Ligier of Anders Fjordbach, who had challenged the Italian all the way to the chequered flag.

The GT battle was won by the no57 Car Guy Ferrari 296 GT3, with Daniel Serra bringing the car home at the head of a Ferrari 1-2-3.

The race started under blue skies with the temperature topping 34 degrees as the cars crossed the line to begin the first race of the 4 Hours of Sepang weekend.

The pole sitting no22 Proton Competition Oreca was passed by the no50 AF Corse, the silver graded Patrick Byrne getting ahead of the bronze rated Georgio Roda into T1.  Roda latched onto the back of the leading Oreca and Byrne was forced to defend his position.

There was chaos further back at T2 as the two Inter Europol Competition Ligiers collided, spinning the no34 Ligier around and causing several GT cars to take avoiding action.  The result was the no28 AF Corse Ferrari was in the lead of GT at the end of lap 1 while the pole sitting no9 Getspeed Mercedes-AMG had fallen down the order.

The no7 Graff Racing Ligier had moved ahead on the opening lap into the LMp3 lead, with Alex Bukhantsov ahead of the pole sitting no35 Ultimate Ligier of Stephane Lemeret.

The no30 RD Limited had started 10th on the LMP2 grid, with Fred Poordad making a mistake at T15, spinning off and the American having to wait for the entire field to go past before he could rejoin.  That set the scene for an amazing fight back that would see RD Limited go from dead last to the top step of the podium.

On the third lap the Safety Car was deployed for the first time when the no23 Absolute Racing Ferrari of Gregory Bennett and the no57 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Yudai Uchida collided, leaving the Absolute Racing Ferrari stranded on the exit of T2.  The recovering no34 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Tim Creswick came around the corner and hit the stranded Ferrari, putting the car into retirement.

After the track was cleared the race resumed after 10 minutes. However, the no21 Car Collection Porsche went off at T8 after contact with the no42 Prime Speed Sport Lamborghini, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car, which was then followed by the second Safety Car period.

Many cars decided to stop under the VSC period and the no91 Pure Rxcing Oreca of Aliaksandr Malykhin went into the pits in fourth and emerged in second behind the leading no50 AF Corse Oreca.  Another beneficiary of a quick stop was Stephane Lemeret when the Ultimate crew got the car back out in front of the Graff Racing Ligier.

At the restart there were several changes but then the rear tyre of the no82 AF Corse Ferrari exploded on the pit straight, with Charles-Henri Samani struggling for a full lap to get the car back to the pits.  In a separate incident the no34 IEC Ligier ended up in the gravel at T8 after contact with the no87 Origine Motorsport Porsche, which pulled off the circuit at the next corner.  The second VSC period was declared which was followed by the third Safety Car period.

Again, the pitstops during the VSC period put the no91 Oreca at the head of the field with Harry King now at the wheel.  The no74 Kessel Racing Ferrari was the leading GT contender after a brilliant drive following the first lap incident.  Dustin Blattner had moved swiftly back up the field to head the GT field after one hour of racing.

The race restarted and King started to open up a gap to the following group of LMP2 cars, but another VSC period was declared after just 10-minutes of green flag running.

The no43 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Steve Brooks had braked late into the final corner, hitting the no16 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG and then colliding with the no10 Manthey Porsche 911 before coming to rest in the gravel trap.  Both the Ligier and the Porsche were too damaged to recover to the pits, while the no16 Mercedes-AMG continued.

Under the Virtual Safety Car Sergey Stolyarov came into the pits in the no16 Mercedes-AMG with the no91 Pure Rxcing Oreca right behind.  Unfortunately, the damage to the Mercedes saw Stolyarov stop in the pitlane outside the Pure Rxcing pitbox.  King was unable to access his pitbox for around 20 seconds and this delay dropped the car from first to last in LMP2.

At the restart the no83 AF Corse Oreca, with Alessio Rovera at the wheel, was now leading, with Vlad Lomko in the no22 Proton Competition in second and Matt Bell in the no24 Nielsen Racing Oreca in third.  Alex Bukhantsov had regained the lead in LMP3 ahead of Stephane Lemeret, while the no28 AF Corse Ferrari was leading GT ahead of the no9 Getspeed Mercedes-AMG.

James Allen in the 5th placed no30 RD Limited Oreca was on the move and after passing several cars was soon challenging Rovera for the lead and on lap 58 the Australian went ahead of his Italian rival.

Bence Valint was now in the no35 Ultimate and was soon leading the LMP3 category as James Winslow in the no7 Ligier dropped back.  Anders Fjordbach had taken over from Mark Patterson in the no49 High Class Racing Ligier moving up from 4th to 2nd with 90-minutes of the race still to run.

Esteban Masson had managed to get ahead in GT in the no57 Car Guy Ferrari, the French driver pulling ahead of his Kessel Racing teammate Ben Tuck in the no74 Ferrari.

As the final hour of the race approached the no30 RD Limited Oreca was leading buy 19 seconds with Tristan Vautier now at the wheel.  Matthieu Vaxiviere was slowly closing the gap to the leader in the no83 AF Corse with Louis Deletraz in the no91 Pure Rxcing and Malthe Jakobsen in the no25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca fighting for the final podium position.

A final Full Course Yellow period was called to clear some debris with 24 minutes left on the clock and after two minute the race went green for the final time.

In GT the no51 AF Corse Ferrari pitted for the final time from the lead, Cedric Sbirrazzuoli rejoining 15 seconds behind Daniel Serra in the no57 Car Guy Ferrari.  Dennis Marschall in the no74 Kessel Racing Ferrari and Richard Lietz in the no92 Manthey EMA Porsche where fighting for the final GT podium position, with Marschall bringing the car home three tenths of a second ahead of the Porsche.

The LMP3 battle went down to the wire with Anders Fjordbach closing the gap to the leading Ultimate Ligier. Matteo Quintarelli was able to keep the High Class Racing Ligier at bay in the last few laps and crossed the line 2.5 seconds ahead of Fjordbach.  The no7 Graff Racing Ligier claimed the final podium position in LMP3.

At the head of the field the no30 RD Limited Oreca was being caught by the no83 AF Corse Oreca as Vautier struggled on worn tyres.  Vaxiviere tried every trick in his extensive race craft arsenal and on the final lap managed to get ahead of Vautier with three corners to go.  However, the AF Corse Oreca went wide at the final corner and Vautier dived down the inside to regain the lead.  As the two cars exited the final turn the no30 Oreca was just ahead as they raced for the line.  The two cars took the chequered flag side by side, with Vautier taking the win by just 0.055s.

The final podium position was claimed by the no91 Pure Rxcing Oreca with Louis Deletraz taking the chequered flag 44 seconds behind the first two cars and 14 seconds ahead of the no25 Algarve Pro racing Oreca of Malthe Jakobsen in fourth.

Results are HERE