2011 French Grand Prix

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25px   2011 French Grand Prix
Race details
Race {{{Race_No}}} of the 2011 Superleague season
Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours.png
Date May 19th, 2011
Official name 2011 French Grand Prix
Location Circuit de Nevers
Magny Cours, France
Course Permanent Racing Facility
2.641 mi / 4.411 km
Distance 70 laps, 190.069 mi / 305.886 km
Weather Sunny
Pole position
Driver Malta Jason Muscat Red Archer-Renault
Time 1:09.920
Fastest Lap
Driver Malta Joe Consiglio Nordsjoen-Mercedes
Time 1:10.588
Podium
First Malta Joe Consiglio Nordsjoen-Mercedes
Second England Lee Morris Draig-Ferrari
Third Belgium Bart De Vos TDR-Toyota


The 2011 French Grand Prix for the Superleague - the seventh race of the season - took place on the Magny-Cours track in France on the 19th of May.

Report

Consiglio takes victory at Magny Cours.
2009 World Champion Joe Consiglio clinched his first victory of the 2011 season as he completed a strategy masterpiece to win the GPVWC Superleague French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours. The Maltese ace finished the race 3.5 seconds ahead of Championship leader Lee Morris, with debutant Bart de Vos claiming a podium in his first outing in the GPVWC's premier series.

Consiglio started from the pole position after Jason Muscat, who had been the fastest in qualifying, was demoted to 6th for an incident in last week's Austrian Grand Prix. Lee Morris lined up 2nd, ahead of Dave Carr-Smith and Ojay Clark. Fernando Laaff started fifth, with the demoted Muscat ahead of Sam Millar, who could not replicate his qualifying from from the previous two races.

Both Maltese drivers had excellent starts, with Consiglio retaining first and Muscat jumping up to second; Lee Morris had another race start compromised by a poor getting off the line, and was passed by Clark as Carr-Smith had to take to the gravel at turn 1. Muscat's race, though, was short lived as an electrical problem meant he had to retire, depriving us of one of the great protagonists of this race. With Consiglio now ahead of Clark, the Nordsjoen driver was able to open an important gap over all rivals and, by the time Morris managed to dispatch the Williamson Dynamics, the gap between the leading duo was above 13 seconds.

It soon became clear, however, that Consiglio and Morris were on two different strategies, with the former choosing a three-stopper as opposed to his rival's two-stop strategy. In order to make it work, Consiglio needed at least 17 seconds advantage at the time of his last stop - a tall order for the 2009 Champion.

As the situation calmed in a relatively uneventful race, and a good de Vos settled in third, all eyes turned to the leading duo. After Consiglio pitted for the second time and emerged a mere 2 seconds behind Morris, a tense race was on the cards with both drivers needing one further visit to the pits. With the Draig racing driver able to defend well on the high-speed straights and the Nordsjoen more effective in the mixed part, Consiglio - who at that stage was able to lap significantly faster than Morris - tried for many laps to find a way through into the lead; it was only with a brave switchback at the Adelaide hairpin that the former Champion found a space wide enough to put his car into the lead.

Morris pitted for the last time with 23 laps to go, and Consiglio followed suit some 6 laps later - crucially, re-emerging with a 2 second lead that was to last until the end of the race, his first win since Singapore 2010. Morris clinched second to retain a good advantage in the Drivers' Championship, while Bart de Vos resisted Sam Millar's efforts to score a precious podium for TDR.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos No Driver Constructor Lap Gap
1 5 MaltaJason Muscat Red Archer-Renault 01:09.920
2 2 MaltaJoe Consiglio Nordsjoen-Mercedes 01:10.112 +0.192s
3 14 EnglandLee Morris Draig-Ferrari 01:10.205 +0.284s
4 24 EnglandDave Carr-Smith Midnight-Renault 01:10.645 +0.725s
5 19 EnglandOjay Clark Williamson-Mercedes 01:10.743 +0.823s
6 8 GermanyLuis Fernando Laaff Constant-Renault 01:10.828 +0.907s
7 10 ScotlandSam Millar Synergetic-Ferrari 01:10.829 +0.908s
8 23 BelgiumBart De Vos TDR-Toyota 01:11.047 +1.127s
9 4 IrelandKieran Ryan Woods-Mercedes 01:11.127 +1.206s
10 3 EnglandMark Wicks Woods-Mercedes 01:11.432 +1.512s
11 22 EnglandPhil Perkins TDR-Toyota 01:11.716 +1.796s
12 7 EnglandMark Stanton Constant-Renault 01:11.751 +1.830s
13 6 SwitzerlandDavid Jundt Red Archer-Renault 01:12.043 +2.122s
14 15 ScotlandRyan Walker Draig-Ferrari 01:12.221 +2.301s
15 9 GermanyChristoph Lichtenstein Synergetic-Ferrari 01:12.725 +2.804s
16 21 NetherlandsAbdel Damghi Nijo-Toyota 01:12.768 +2.847s
17 0 FinlandJyri Lylykorpi Nordsjoen-Mercedes 01:12.852 +2.932s
18 16 EnglandMark Fuller ST-BMW 01:13.437 +3.516s
19 20 EnglandBen Warren Nijo-Toyota 01:15.852 +5.932s

Race

Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Pitstops Fastlap Controller Points
1 2 MaltaJoe Consiglio Nordsjoen-Mercedes 70 1:23:47.583 2 3 01:10.588 Wheel generic-unknown.png 15
2 14 EnglandLee Morris Draig-Ferrari 70 +3.655s 3 2 01:10.649 Wheel generic-unknown.png 12
3 23 BelgiumBart De Vos TDR-Toyota 70 +1:02.268s 8 2 01:11.323 Wheel generic-unknown.png 10
4 10 ScotlandSam Millar Synergetic-Ferrari 70 +1:06.448s 7 2 01:11.028 Wheel generic-unknown.png 8
5 6 SwitzerlandDavid Jundt Red Archer-Renault 69 +1 Lap 13 2 01:11.112 Wheel generic-unknown.png 6
6 19 EnglandOjay Clark Williamson-Mercedes 69 +1 Lap 5 2 01:11.754 Keyboard.png 5
7 3 EnglandMark Wicks Woods-Mercedes 69 +1 Lap 10 3 01:11.670 Wheel generic-unknown.png 4
8 4 IrelandKieran Ryan Woods-Mercedes 68 +2 Laps 9 4 01:11.776 Wheel generic-unknown.png 3
9 15 ScotlandRyan Walker Draig-Ferrari 68 +2 Laps 14 2 01:12.441 Wheel generic-unknown.png 2
10 21 NetherlandsAbdel Damghi Nijo-Toyota 67 +3 Laps 16 2 01:12.629 Wheel generic-unknown.png 1
11 16 EnglandMark Fuller ST-BMW 65 +5 Laps 18 3 01:13.810 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 0 FinlandJyri Lylykorpi Nordsjoen-Mercedes 61 DNF 17 3 01:12.425 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 9 GermanyChristoph Lichtenstein Synergetic-Ferrari 51 DNF 15 3 01:12.395 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 7 EnglandMark Stanton Constant-Renault 26 DNF 12 1 01:12.062 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 22 EnglandPhil Perkins TDR-Toyota 19 DNF 11 0 01:12.201 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 17 EnglandDavid Stanton ST-BMW 10 DNF 20 0 01:12.357 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 8 GermanyLuis Fernando Laaff Constant-Renault 10 DNF 6 1 01:11.565 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 24 EnglandDave Carr-Smith Midnight-Renault 9 DNF 4 0 01:11.340 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 20 EnglandBen Warren Nijo-Toyota 2 DNF 19 1 01:40.120 Wheel generic-unknown.png 0
Ret 5 MaltaJason Muscat Red Archer-Renault 1 DNF 1 0 01:13.882 Keyboard.png 0

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings
Pos Driver Points
1 England Lee Morris 97
2 Malta Joe Consiglio 69
3 Malta Jason Muscat 52
4 Switzerland David Jundt 48
5 Scotland Sam Millar 33
6 England Ojay Clark 28
7 England Dave Carr-Smith 27
8 England Mark Wicks 24
9 England Adam Rouse 22
10 Ireland Kieran Ryan 18
11 England Mark Stanton 12
12 Belgium Bart De Vos 10
13 Finland Jyri Lylykorpi 6
= England Nick Rowland 6
15 Germany Christoph Lichtenstein 4
= Scotland Ryan Walker 4
17 Wales Ben Morgan 1
= Netherlands Abdel Damghi 1

Constructors' Championship standings
Pos Constructor Points
1 England Draig-Ferrari 101
2 Greece Red Archer-Renault 100
3 Italy Nordsjoen-Mercedes 75
4 England Woods-Mercedes 42
5 Northern Ireland Synergetic-Ferrari 37
6 England Midnight-Renault 33
7 England TDR-Toyota 32
8 England Williamson-Mercedes 28
9 England Constant-Renault 12
10 Belgium Computrac-BMW 1
= England Nijo-Toyota 1

External Links


Preceded by:
2011 Austrian Grand Prix
2011 French Grand Prix
2011
Succeeded by:
2011 Monaco Grand Prix