Pescarolo stars fight back to close gap.

Harold Primat and Christophe Tinseau produced a stirring comeback drive to notch up a top six finishing position in the 1,000kms of Valencia last weekend - and maintain the pressure on championship leaders Peugeot.

After qualifying a lowly 14th in their Pescarolo Sport Judd 01 - nine spots down on the sister entry of Romain Dumas and Jean-Christophe Boullion - the duo were then further penalised by having to start right from the rear of the pack in the second round of the 2007 Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES) when their car refused to fire-up for the formation lap.

The pair fought back gallantly, however, with the no. 17 machine demonstrating impressive reliability as they climbed up to sixth place at the chequered flag just behind their team-mates, particularly spurred on by a strong double-stint from Primat mid-race. In the process they also closed the gap on the second works Peugeot to just two points in the overall LMP1 drivers' standings.

"At the start the mechanics got rushed off the grid before they had the chance to switch on the battery," Primat explained afterwards. "I didn't know what was wrong and I had to wait for the boys to come and help me. That meant we couldn't get away on the warm-up lap and had to start at the back.

"I was able to work through the GT2 cars fairly quickly, but unfortunately one of the Ferraris didn't see me and we touched very lightly, but in just the wrong place, giving me a puncture. After that both Christophe and I pushed hard from the back of the field to make a good recovery.

"After the problem at the start we would probably have taken sixth place, but the car felt good enough for a podium so it's a little bit frustrating. In the end it was too difficult to climb back into the top three, but we scored valuable championship points."

"We had the issue on the formation lap and then a few other small problems during the race which cost us some time," Tinseau concurred. "Without those we could have come back to finish fourth or fifth, but I thought we both drove a good race because we didn't have any incidents working our way up through the traffic, which is a major achievement in Valencia!"

Team boss Henri Pescarolo was pleased with his charges' performance under trying circumstances, and satisfied to have proven the car's potential and durability over the long race distance.

"It's a shame about the start," the former Le Mans 24 Hours winner admitted, "but we forgot to tell Harold he would need to re-start the battery. However the drivers didn't make any mistakes and drove a good race. I thought Harold was better than he had been in practice and that shows he's ideally suited to race conditions."

The next round of the 2007 LMES campaign will take place at the N?rburgring from 29 June - 1 July.