Rebellion finish 3rd in the LMP1 Teams’ championship

After an eventful race at the 1000 km of Silverstone, REBELLION Racing finished 3rd in the 2010 Le Mans Series LMP1 Teams Championship thanks to a fifth place finish in the race by the Lola-Rebellion #12 driven by Nico Prost and Neel Jani. This fifth place finish also helped Lola-Rebellion to become vice-champion in the Le Mans Series LMP1 Manufacturers’ classification, behind Peugeot but in front of Aston Martin and Audi.

The 1000 km of Silverstone ended a good season for REBELLION Racing who achieved three podium finishes from the races at Paul Ricard, Algarve and Hungaroring.

Neel Jani in the Lola-Rebellion # 12 had a good start to the 100km of Silverstone that kept him in the lead group of petrol powered cars. After a trouble free stint, he handed over the wheel to Nicolas Prost. At just before the one hour mark in the race, the Drayson Racing Lola touched the rear of #12 Lola-Rebellion forcing Nicolas into a spin, costing the French driver at least twenty seconds in the incident. Later in the race, the #12 Lola-Rebellion was involved in contact with a couple of GT2 cars which necessitated a stop in the pits for repairs that cost nearly two laps. Nicolas Prost and Neel Jani were able to recover to finish in fifth place, but two laps behind the first petrol powered LMP.

The race for the Lola-Rebellion #13 car was even more difficult. After a strong start, Andrea Belicchi led the group of petrol powered LMP1 cars in the early stages of the race. However, the #13 Lola-Rebellion was hit at the rear by the Drayson Racing Lola which damaged the left hand bodywork legality panel. The damaged bodywork had to be changed during the scheduled first pit stop when Jean-Christophe Boullion took over behind the wheel, but one minute was lost with this incident. At the end of Jean-Christophe’s double stint a problem with the clutch delayed the car in the pits and meant that Andrea had to wait whilst the mechanics bled the clutch hydraulics. At the next stop the clutch gave problems again and more time was lost.

At the final pitstop the clutch slave cylinder had to be replaced and this required the gearbox / bellhousing assembly to be split away from the engine. The new slave cylinder was fitted and the gearbox/bellhousing reaffixed to the car just in time for Jean-Christophe to get back out on track to take the chequered flag. It was a sterling effort by the Rebellion Racing mechanics who all performed at the highest level during the race.

Bart Hayden, REBELLION Racing Team Manager commented : « We didn’t really get the reward from this race that we deserved. Both cars suffered from incidents with traffic that had a negative impact on their races. With a third place in the Teams’ Championship, a second place in the Manufacturers’ classification and three podiums this year we shouldn’t be disappointed, but we were hopeful of even more. As a team we have grown stronger through the year and, if you look at the pace of our cars in the last two races, we were right at the front of the petrol engined cars. Over the past three seasons we have grown from having one car in the LMP2 class to two cars in the LMP1 class. Over this winter we will be working even harder to raise our performance so that we can target great results next season. »