Le Mans 2006 - Maldonado spoils French party.

Sunday, 1st October 2006

Pastor Maldonado put the disappointment of retiring in the first race behind him with an important victory in round 15 of the World Series by Renault at Le Mans, the Venezuelan becoming the latest driver to move within striking distance of the championship lead.

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Maldonado was fourth at the end of a safety car led first lap, ahead of Miguel Molina, Celso Miguez, the very fast starting Ryo Fukuda and Ben Hanley from 21st and 24th on the grid respectively, with Christian Montanari rounding out the top ten.

With the safety car back in the pit-lane, it did not take long for Barba to push beyond his limits when trying to pass countryman Garcia, the Spaniard slipping behind Maldonado and Miguez to fifth place.

With Barba out of the way, Maldonado, having gambled on a dry weather set-up as the circuit began to establish a clear line, set about putting the pressure on Garcia, duly finding a way past on lap nine and taking just a further two laps to pass Gommendy into a lead as they begun lap eleven, going side-by-side down the home straight before Maldonado passed into the first corner. He would go on to extend that lead to two seconds in little more than a lap.

With times tumbling on a rapidly drying circuit, the drivers began to dive into the pit-lane, with Miguez pitting first from fourth, a lap prior to Maldonado and Hanley, while Fukuda, Barba, Gommendy and Garcia would last only another couple of laps on wet tyres before they gave in to fresh rubber.

With the pit-stops over with, Maldonado resumed with an even bigger lead, some seven seconds ahead of Gommendy and Garcia, who were circulating in similar lap times.

However, fourth was now being occupied by Montanari, the podium winner from the first race clearly benefiting from an unusual early pit-stop for slick tyres to jump up from the tenth place he held prior to stopping.

Further back, Miguez led Barba, Fukuda, Steven Kane, recovering from the back of the grid after problems in qualifying, and the Brit's Epsilon Euskadi team-mate Davide Valsecchi.

It was this battle that proved to be the one to watch after Barba spun off from a strong sixth place, but not before Montanari made a mistake and slipped down to seventh place, allowing Fukuda up into fourth place.