The European Le Mans Series couldn’t start under better auspices for Michele Beretta. At the wheel of the Proton Competition’s Porsche 911 RSR, the italian young driver got the win in the championship opening round at Le Castellet (France).
Together with Christian Ried and Alessio Picariello, Beretta claimed the win after an hard battle with the Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE EVO driven by Broniszewski-Cadei-Perel.
Since the official pre-season test sessions, which took place at the beginning of the week, Michele had been very well at the wheel of the 911 RSR, both on the single qualifying lap and in the race pace. Everything went well during the event with the car always competitive, perfect team’s strategies and very good feeling with the whole crew. All these factors brought the best possible result.
After the podium gained at the Bathurst 12 Hour and the top performance shown with the Audi R8 LMS GT3 at the Nürburgring, Beretta jumped up in the highest podium step in his first ELMS race.
“The race went very well, I am satisfied – said Beretta at the end – Already from the testing days we were confident because the car was fast and we only needed to improve some aspects to reach the best set-up for the race. We were able to finish everything and the result rewarded
us. For the race we worked to optimize the wear on the front tyres, a key aspect of car’s balnce. Alessio and I’ve always been among the fastest; at the start, Christian very well and avoided any critical situation that in this kind of race usually happen, racing together with car of other categories like LMP3 and LMP2. We had competitive stint, pushing hard without making any mistake, that allowed us to beat Kessel’s Ferrari.”
Michele now is looking forward to the next one: “I think Ferrari and Aston Martin will be our main challengers, even if the british car didn’t looks so quick in Le Castellet. We are satisfied about the job done so far and we look forward to be at Spa.”
The next European Le Mans Series round, the 4 Hours of Spa Francorchamps, is scheduled for 8-9 August.
