After a day of testing on Thursday (P1 at the end of the second session) followed by two free practice sessions on Friday (P2) and Saturday morning (P3), Job van Uitert qualified the car in third place on a 46-degree track after a close battle with IDEC Sport and COOL Racing.

On Sunday, our Venezuelan Silver driver Manuel Maldonado started the race from Row 2 of the grid and immediately moved up a place just behind the leader, but he then lost 2 places, and kept on trying to get past the IDEC Sport car of Paul Lafargue. A mission complete on Lap 5. Back on track after his first pit stop, Manuel was in P5 and recovered one place a few laps later by passing Rui Andrade (Inter Europol Competition). The driver change came after 42 laps on track. Tijmen Van Der Helm jumped into the car after a fast pit stop by the mechanics, which enabled him to gain a few precious seconds. As the laps went by, the Dutchman closed the gap to the leading trio, regularly setting some of the fastest laps during his stint and moving brilliantly into P3 just before the Safety Car came out.

Shortly after the restart, he overtook the COOL Racing car to find himself just behind the leader, whom he passed on the following lap. The #65 Oreca was now leading the French round, but a puncture following a run over a kerb forced it back into the pits, dropping it to P7 (13th overall). This was followed by a FCY that penalized the team even more, with a loss of another 6 seconds. Tijmen didn't give up though, quite the opposite in fact, as he made up places on every lap thanks to an incredible pace. He went back to the pits to hand the car over to Job van Uitert, but with the known handicap of having to make an extra stop to refuel. Once again, the team's leader was constantly the fastest on track. The final pitstop went perfectly, and Job carried on his fantastic comeback, gaining 5 places overall and crossing the chequered flag in P6 in the Pro category. That fatal puncture wiped out our race...

Olivier Panis - Team Principal : "We would have been quite certain of winning the race without that dreadful puncture. That's the harsh reality of the sport. Everything was there, the car had been set up to perfection by the engineers, our mechanics was once again the best pit-stoppers on the grid, and our drivers performed excellently. Despite the disappointment, I'm proud of our team. Each member of Panis Racing proved once more how talented they are. We deserve to be rewarded at some point. See you in Spain next month!"