OREANDA-NEWS. Jann Mardenborough, Gaetan Paletou and Ricardo Sanchez took second place in the PRO-AM class of Sunday’s Blancpain Endurance Series race at Silverstone after battling hard for three hours in the #22 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. The sister #23 GT-R finished in a somewhat unlucky 13th position in the PRO class after contact with a backmarker in the opening stint of the race.

During an exciting qualifying session on Sunday morning, Alex Buncombe took outright pole position in the #23 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, and Jann Mardenborough took seventh overall in #22, which placed him second in the PRO-AM class.

The #23 Nissan was in the hands of Wolfgang Reip for the start of Sunday’s three-hour race. The Belgian made a great getaway and despite a sustained challenge from Rob Bell in the #58 McLaren, he drove a strong stint, holding onto the lead throughout, only to be scuppered by an altercation with a backmarker just before the first pit stop.

“Everything was going well until I came across the Ferrari,” Reip explained. “He moved to the right so I thought, ‘great, he is letting me through.’ But then he braked and pulled in front of me, so all I could do was hit him.”

Gaetan Paletou had also made a good start in the #22 PRO-AM Nissan GT-R, and after some long battles with PRO cars he handed the car over to Ricardo Sanchez in 13th position overall, which was second in the PRO-AM class.

Both Katsumasa Chiyo and Sanchez had good runs in the middle section of the race, with Chiyo in particular working his way up the order. For Sanchez this was his first run in a Blancpain race after he didn’t get to drive in the race at Monza.

“That was a wonderful experience,” said Sanchez. “The car felt good and it was an amazing experience to race with the whole pack. I concentrated on being very smooth and on building my confidence, and I had a good solid stint so I am happy.”

The run to the flag came down to Nissan LM P1 drivers Alex Buncombe and Jann Mardenborough. Buncombe managed to chase down a few places and by the closing laps of the race, Mardenborough’s Nissan was breathing down the neck of the eventual PRO-AM winner whose lead would have been under threat had Jann had a few more laps to hunt him down.

“I enjoyed my stint,” said Mardenborough. “It has been a long time since I drove a GT3 car at Silverstone, so I was pleased that I could manage the tires well and only really struggled with them in the last four laps. Considering that Gaetan and Ricardo are new to this, the driver changes went really, well and it’s just a shame that we had some bad luck with a full course yellow. I could see the leader in the final laps but didn’t have enough time to catch him. I’m happy with the result though as I’ve now had two podiums in my last two races (Blancpain Silverstone and GP3 Barcelona).”

For Buncombe and Mardenborough, all roads now lead to Le Mans as the three Nissan GT-R LM NISMOs will be on track next Sunday (May 31) for the official Le Mans Test Day.

ORDONEZ BAGS HIS BEST F3 RESULT YET AS HE WARMS UP FOR LE MANS

As if racing in the Super GT GT500 class and at the Le Mans 24 Hours wasn’t enough, Lucas Ord??ez is also competing in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship this year. The speedy Spaniard took his best result of the season so far at Okayama this weekend, taking second place in race one and then fourth in race two.

“I’ve been working hard on not losing places at the start of the F3 races, and that work is really starting to pay off,” said Ord??ez. “In race one, I went from fifth to second, and then in race two I got up to third from fifth. We have been struggling for pace against the top guys, but today we made some set-up changes and it was much better. I just missed out on the second podium as I tried to pass the Tom's in second place, which meant I got a bad exit from the corner and lost third place to Takaboshi. Anyway I’m happy to get this result, racing against guys who have much more F3 experience. Next time out I will push even harder from qualifying until the last lap.”