After securing a maximum 26 championship points in France last month the no2 United Autosports Ligier-Nissan of Rob Wheldon, Tom Gamble and Wayne Boyd repeated the feat in Belgium with an emphatic LMP3 class win from pole position in the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
Under blue skies and soaring temperatures, the race got underway, with Rob Wheldon making the most of his pole position to pull out a lead over the no15 RLR MSport Ligier driven by Malthe Jakobsen and the no4 DKR Engineering Duqueine of François Kirmann.
On Lap 8 the first of two Safety Cars was deployed when Martin Hippe in the no13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier went into the tyre wall on the exit of Bruxelles trying to avoid the spinning no10 Nielsen Racing Duqueine of Rob Hodes. The race was neutralised for 20 minutes before the green flag was shown to resume.
At the restart Wheldon had to work hard to open up the gap to Jakobsen that he had lost behind the Safety Car. Andrew Bentley was up to third in the no3 United Autosports Ligier, with Tony Wells in fourth in the no7 Nielsen Racing Duqueine M30-D08.
A second Safety Car was deployed to recover the no60 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Claudio Schiavoni, the Italian colliding with Will Owen’s no32 Oreca as the American overtook him.
After the second restart, Wheldon started to pull away from the chasing pack, putting some of the leading GTE cars between him and the first LMP3 car, which was now the no9 Graff Ligier of Arnold Robin. As the two-hour mark approached, the LMP3 leader headed to the pits to hand over to Tom Gamble. He was 41 seconds ahead of the no77 Porsche, which was leading LMGTE, with Arnold Robin a further 18 seconds down the road.
Gamble headed out to build on his teammates good work. A Full Course Yellow (FCY) was declared when the no54 AF Corse Ferrari of Francesco Castellacci stopped at T15. After the car was recovered and racing resumed.
The no7 Nielsen Racing Duqueine now had the rapid Colin Noble behind the wheel, but the Scot was nearly 80 seconds behind the lead car and faced a mammoth task to close the gap just as the rain started to fall on parts of the circuit at Spa.
There was plenty of action further down the field as Noble started to eat into Gambles lead.However, during the FCY to recover the stricken no26 G-Drive Racing Aurus which had crashed out from the overall lead, Gamble headed into the pits to hand over to Wayne Boyd.With Boyd behind the wheel the gap stabilised to around 60 seconds until the end of the race.
At the chequered flag the no2 United Autosports Ligier crossed the line 55 seconds ahead of the no7 Nielsen Racing Duqueine. The final podium position was secured by reigning LMP3 champions Eurointernational, the American flagged team finishing two laps behind the leading cars and 32 seconds ahead of the no9 Graff Ligier.
CLICK HERE for the result from the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
CLICK HERE for the drivers reactions
