The best lap in qualifying practice and in official race, as well as a hard-earned third place that secured the last place on the podium. These were the consolations of Bruno Senna at the 6 Hours of Shanghai, penultimate stage of the World Endurance Championship. The trio formed by Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéfane Richelmi assured the title of category LMP2. To the new champions was enough to complete in the fourth place in the race . With 183 points and 26 still in contention, they can no longer be reached.
The closing stage of the next day in Bahrain will serve only to define the vice. Senna and his partners in RGR Sport, Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque and Mexican Ricardo Gonzalez, add 148 and take 11 points ahead of Rusinov. The problem is that the Russian team comes from two straight wins. “They’re supposed to be destroying everybody, but they’ve been very unlucky, except for Mexico, they’ve always been the fastest,” Senna said.
Senna said the result in China was perhaps even higher than the potential revealed by the JS P2-Nissan Ligier over the weekend.
“It could have been a lot worse.It was a miracle to get on the podium.We only managed to get the Signatech Alpine in the pits and the last minute was a blow because they were stuck in the Phillipe to the flag.Wearing of the tires of our car was above than expected.”
Bruno Senna, who completed the opening round, lamented the loss of time during that first phase. “Mikhail Aleshin passed me and then it got complicated, because the BR01 is slow in rhythm, but it flies in the straight. I lost 25 seconds in this fight ” , He explained.
source: presskit.com.br
Race Results
1 – Roman Rusinov, Will Stevens, Alex Brundle – Oreca 05-Nissan
2 – Antonio Giovinazzi, Tom Blomqvist, Sean Gelael – Ligier JS P2-Nissan
3 – Bruno Senna, Filipe Albuquerque, Ricardo Gonzalez – Ligier JS P2-Nissan
4 – Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre, Stéfane Richelmi – Alpine A460-Nissan
5 – Pipo Derani, Ryan Dalziel, Chris Cumming – Ligier JS P2-Nissan
6 – Nicolas Minassian, Maurizio Mediani, Mikhail Aleshin – BR01-Nissan
7 – Vitaly Petrov, Kirill Ladygin, Victor Shaitar – BR01-Nissan
8 – David Cheng, Ho-Pin Tung, Paul Loup Chatin- Alpine A460-Nissan
9 – Matthew Rao, Richard Bradley, Alex Lynn – Oreca 05-Nissan