Mugello Racing Weekend 2024: Masters Endurance Legends

Former Le Mans winner Christophe Bouchut powered to victory in his first Masters Endurance Legends appearance, but the Frenchman had to drive his Lotus-liveried Enso CLM-P1 hard to face off challenges from Yutaka Toriba and Alfie Briggs in the LMP2 BR Engineering-Nissan BR01 and Keith Frieser in the Zytek 09S, the Canadian coming into play after a mid-race safety-car period.

“It went very well”, said Bouchut. “We decided with byKolles to participate in this race not so long before, so we had no information about setup and progressed session after session. Then the car was quite good, we had no problem. It’s a championship with several classes, so you have to think about this and not make mistakes. Because I had to stop for 40 seconds of additional time, it was a challenge because you don’t know the level of the other drivers. In the end, I took the lead only two laps before the end. I really enjoyed it.”

Starting from pole, Bouchut failed to shake off Toriba during his opening stint and then had to fight his way up from eighth following his longer mandatory stop due to his elite-driver penalty. For a moment, Frieser looked good in the lead but Bouchut found additional place in the byKolles-run car to catch and pass the Zytek 09S with five minutes to go. Alfie Briggs brought home Toriba’s BR01 in third overall, handing the Anglo-Japanese duo an LMP2 class win over Michael Birch in the Ligier JSP2-17, who finished fourth after momentarily leading because of a perfectly planned pitstop behind the safety car.

“I pushed as hard as I can”, said Frieser, “but his car is a little more modern and he’s much more experienced. In the end, he’s got quite a bit more top speed and he’s a very good driver. So he got by me fair and square. I just went as hard as I could to stay ahead of the young guy here, young Alfie. So, great race, great track, really good.”

“Yutaka, my teammate, started”, said Briggs. “He did a really good job, kept up with Christophe. Then the safety car came out so, we came in, I got in, I don’t know if it helped us or hindered us, because I had a 20-second penalty. I came out and Christoph was right behind me after the safety car car and down the main straight he just drove straight past us. Then Keith had a big gap to me but I caught him up on the last lap. I just couldn’t get him. But it was good fun.”

In GTs, Victor Jabouille did the early running in the Chrysler Viper GTS-R, hounded by the two Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3 of Afschin Fatemi and Kari Makela. While the Finn dropped away from the lead fight, Fatemi continued to harry Jabouille during his second stint, the German finally finding a way past five minutes from the end.

“What can I say? It was my first time in such a high-grip car”, Fatemi enthused. “It was so much fun because the track itself here – you look up, you always have to concentrate on the track and not look at the forest and the mountains, because everything is so beautiful here! The track is so crazy fast. You always have to be full throttle through the corners and everything. It’s good fun. I followed Victor and learned a lot from him just by following him. Then I got lucky and passed him.”

“I just wanted to manage the grip and the tyres, season because when you get the new slick tyires for size for 40 minutes, you need to manage them”, said Jabouille. “So it was very close at the end!”

“This was the first race in Mugello for me”, said Makela. “I’ve never seen the track before. It was very difficult for me to learn the track in two days. It was not a problem to follow them on the first two or three laps, but after that I lost the grip of my tyres. There was a big vibration because I overheated them, I still need to learn how to use these tyres.”

Around 11 in the morning, the Masters Endurance Legends field exited their garages for their first of two races on the Mugello Race Weekend’s Sunday. Christophe Bouchut was on pole in the Enso CLM-P1, with Yutaka Toriba sitting next to him in the BR Engineering BR01. The two Zyteks of Jamie Constable and Keith Frieser occupied the second row, ahead of Michael Birch in the Ligier JSP2-17 and Filippo Francioni in the first of the Lucchinis. A few spots further back, Victor sat on the GT pole in the Chrysler Viper GTS-R, ahead of the two Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3s of Kari Makela and Afschin Fatemi.

Bouchut continued to lead through the opening lap, but Toriba wasn’t letting the byKolles car out of sight, as Frieser sneaked ahead of Constable to be third. Behind them, Francioni got the ageing Lucchini in front of Birch’s Ligier, with Craig Davies up next in the Ligier JSP3, followed by Ranieri Randaccio in the second Lucchini. Behind the first three GT cars, Jeremy Loisel’s Mosler MT900R was fourth ahead of Matteo Panini in the Eurotech-built Marcos Mantis Challenge GT.

On lap 2, Birch had reclaimed his fifth spot with the hope of catching Constable who was now five seconds up the road and dicing with Frieser, while at the front Bouchut and Toriba remained almost nose to tail, 1.6 seconds in between them on lap 3. 41 seconds further back, Jabouille had four ticks in hand over the warring Astons that in turn had dropped Loisel by some 18 seconds. Panini was a further five adrift, while in 14th overall, Fred Fatien tried to bounce back from a pair of troubled qualifying sessions in the Lola B12/80 LMP2 machine. On lap 4, the Frenchman had cleared the Marcos.

Ten minutes into the race, Bouchut’s advantage had been extended 2.1 seconds, but Toriba was valiantly hanging on in the leading LMP2 car. The Japanese driver had put himself 14 seconds clear of the battle between the Zyteks – but on lap 5, that battle vanished when Constable reported to the pits. He was out fairly soon but had dropped to 11th. Soon though, the Zytek 04S was in for a second time, now falling down to dead last. Birch was now 28 seconds behind the leader, 12 ticks ahead of Francioni who was now holding off Davies for fifth. In GTs, the order between the two Astons had switched around, and Fatemi set about catching Jabouille while leaving Makela to trail by some five seconds.

Then, with two minutes remaining ahead of the pit window, the safety car was out, as Davies seemed to be in trouble. The leaders passed the pits just 15 seconds before the window opened so behind them, Birch was the first to profit, followed by Fatien. So at the end of lap 8, all the other filed into the pits, leaving Birch as the new leader! With elite-driver penalties for Bouchut and Alfie Briggs taking over from Toriba, the order was further shaken up, as now Birch led from Frieser, Jabouille, Fatemi, Francioni, Randaccio, Briggs, Bouchut, Makela and Andrea Pergreffi who had relieved Panini in the Marcos. Loisel and Fatien, meanwhile, were left behind in the pits, along with Constable who appeared to have given up.

At the restart, Frieser immediately got the jump on Birch to lead into the first corner. Further back, Briggs and Bouchut were making up places quickly, and still on lap 11, they were in third and fourth respectively. But instead of catching Frieser, they were doing similar laptimes to the Canadian who now looked good in the lead. They did switch order, though, with the French former Le Mans winner nipping ahead of the British teenager. Francioni remained in fifth, just ahead of a fierce GT lead battle between Jabouille and Fatemi, looked on by Randaccio. In ninth overall, Makela had lost touch with the top two GT cars.

On lap 13, both Bouchut and Briggs remained nose to tail as they both passed Birch for second and third, but Frieser was still some eight seconds up the road. But Bouchut now found a fresh bit of pace and took two whole seconds out of the Canadian’s lead on lap 14. Suddenly, it was wide open again. With two more fastest laps of the race, Bouchut further cut Frieser’s lead to just 2.3 seconds – and with five minutes still remaining on the clock, the Frenchman was now favourite for the win. Meanwhile, further back, Fatemi had done the move on Jabouille for the GT class lead.

Soon the same would happen at the front, and Bouchut duly reclaimed the lead going into lap 17. In fact, Frieser was at risk of also losing second, but then the message came through that Briggs would be docked ten seconds for overtaking under the safety car.

So the 1991 French Formula 3 champion went on to coast to the win that was expected him, leading home Frieser by 7 seconds. Briggs was third, 18 seconds in arrears, including that time penalty, and the LMP2 class winner along with Toriba, with Birch in fourth overall and second in class. Behind Francioni, Fatemi took the GT win from Jabouille, with Makela further back, the Finn trailing home Randaccio in the second Lucchini but leading Pergreffi in ninth overall.