Panis wins the chaotic Barcelona season opener
- therookiereporters
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
The 2026 European Le Mans Series or ELMS for short, started their season this Sunday at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, for a 4 hours race that was full of an early crash, Multiple safety cars and yellow flags and a very big list of penalties, but Forestier Racing by Panis proved that keeping your composure is just as important as maintaining a good pace.
A Lot Of Red Flags And Early Drama
The tone was set very quickly after the green flag was waved with a multiple car crash at the very first corner, which involved car #4 DKR Engineering and #17 CLX Motorsport and #68 M Racing and at same time 3 LMP2 crashed in turn to, this crash involved car #9 Proton Competition, #47 CLX Motorsport and #27 Nielsen Racing. Both crashes triggered a red flag, with all the debris that was scattered across the track and LMP2 and LMP3 cars damaged, the race was stopped for almost an hour. To make sure fans saw the full four hour race, the officials decided to take the rare step of extending the clock by 25 minutes.
Once the race finally started, it became a strategic competition. The pole-sitter car #34 Inter Europol Competition car, which was driven by Reshad de Gerus and Bijoy Garg, was leading the race for nearly 3 hours, it looked like the team would win this race with ease. During their way to easy victory the car number 29 was sliding down in the standings. A driver-through penalty for a starting infringement which was followed by two different 10-second penalties for overtaking off-track and disobeying race director instructions.
The Masson Masterclass
As the final hour was coming closer, car #29 sat in a distant fourth place. The team took a massive strategic gamble by leaving Esteban Masson out on the fresher tires for the last and final charge. He began a pursuit, working his way into the double-digit lead which was held by car #34 and #22 United Autosports.
With 11 minutes left on the clock, Masson needed to pull off a move that could get him into the lead, and he did in a single sweep through the final sector of the track, he got past Ben Hanley in the #22 and Jack Doohan in the #24 Nielsen Racing car. A late breaking incident into turn 4 saw the #34 slip up the inside, so Masson saw his chance and just two minutes after passing #22 and #24 he was in the lead of the race. In the end he crossed the line 13.3 seconds ahead of the whole field, completing an impressive comeback.
Class Honors And National Pride
The battle for the sub-classes was just as fierce as for the normal competition. In the LMP2 PRO/Am, the #20 Algarve Pro Racing took the victory after fighting car number #30 Duqueine Team for almost the whole race. Malthe Jackson was doing an amazing job holding off Richard Verschoor who drove for Duqueine.
In the LMP3, Rinaldi Racing celebrated a good debut for their #5 prototype. They used a clever “overcut” strategy during the last few rounds of pit stops to jump the early leaders from R-ace GP and Eurointernational. In the LMGT3 the #75 Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 took the win.Tom Sargent managed to keep the #23 United Autosports McLaren behind him by 3 seconds, which was the closest class finish of the day.
Article written by Zoë Wokke
