18 June 2016
Le Mans, 18 June 2016 - Aleksey Basov and Victor Shaytar relived sweet memories at Le Mans on Saturday when their AF Corse car sponsored by SMP Racing triumphed in the GT class in the second race of the new GT3 Le Mans Cup. A year ago, the duo along with Italy's Andrea Bertolini, pulled off a massive victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the 458 Italia. On Saturday, the pair won again at the wheel of one of the new 488 GT3s, the Prancing Horse's turbo car.
Cautious start. The Russian crew started off cautiously, taking no risks on kerbs that were still wet after heavy rainfall on Thursday and Friday. So until the driver change, car no. 57 was behind the Porsche of Mentos Racing driven by Perfetti and Bachler and the McLaren of FFF Racing Team by ACM of Hamaguchi-Quaife-Hobbs.
Change of gear. Shaytar took over with the driver change and maintained a steady pace to pull away from all his rivals, even managing to put some LMP3 prototypes between himself and the other GT cars. In the end the Russian duo were first over the line to revive the glories of last year's Le Mans. The overall race went to the Ligier of DC Racing driven by Thomas Laurent and Alexandre Cognaud. Next round is in about one month at the Red Bull Ring.