First BES win for new McLaren 650S

VonRyan Racing claimed a first Blancpain Endurance Series victory for the new McLaren 650S at Silverstone with Rob Bell, Shane Van Gisbergen and Kevin Estre.

The trio of McLaren factory drivers took a dominant victory, Estre crossing the line at the end of the three-hour race 23 seconds in front of the WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra driven by Jean-Karl Vernay, Robin Frijns and Laurens Vanthoor.

VonRyan effectively sealed the victory early in the race when it brought in Bell for the car's first pitstop just 45 minutes into the race during a full-course yellow.

The time gained meant that Van Gisbergen emerged with a lead of approximately 40s after the pit stop sequence was complete shortly after the one-hour mark.

The Kiwi was able to extend his stint to almost to the two-thirds mark of the three hour race at the same time as maintaining the 40s gap.

Estre's lead was cut to just 15s when the best of the ISR Audi R8 LMS ultras made its final pitstop under yellow conditions, but Marco Bonanomi was unable to mount any kind of challenge for ISR.

The VonRyan McLaren took the chequered flag ahead of the WRT Audi which had overturned a 14s deficit to Bonanomi with Vanthoor at the wheel.

Bell said: "We'd done our homework and talked about it, at length, actually.

"It was a tough call because we knew it would be tight on fuel, but it was the right one – it gained us about half a minute."

Stephane Ortelli, Frank Stippler and Stephane Richelmi took third place in the second of the WRT Audis. Ortelli caught Bonanomi, who shared the ISR Audi with Filip Salaquarda and Frederic Vervisch, with a couple of laps to go but did not need to pass because the Italian had been awarded a five-second penalty for a track limits violation.

Fifth place went to the MRS Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 shared by Craig Dolby, Sean Walkinshaw and Martin Plowman, which gained time when a late final pitstop coincided with the second full-course yellow.

Bentley took sixth with the factory M-Sport Continental GT3 shared by Maximilian Buhk, Maxime Soulet and Andy Soucek, which came back from a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

Pro-Am honors went to the Aston Martin Racing-run Leonard Motorsport team, which claimed 14th overall with Michael Meadows, Paul Wilson and Stuart Leonard.

Victory in the Am Cup was taken by Karim Ojjeh and Olivier Grotz aboard their Boutsen BMW Z4 GT3.

Originally on Autosport.com