Zoom An unfortunate penalty

Frenchman Pierre Ragues missed out on a podium finish at the Monza 1000 kilometre race, round two of the Le Mans Series, after being handed a three-minute stop-and-go penalty through no fault of his own.

The 22 year-old had a problem with a fuel hose during his pitstop at the Italian race when it got caught in the bodywork of his car. This caused the Saulnier Racing team to be handed a three-minute penalty, costing Ragues and his teammate Matthieu Lahaye the LMP2 podium they would almost certainly have gained otherwise.

The day before, Ragues had qualified the Pescarolo-Judd in ninth place. He was happy enough with his performance, although he could not get quite enough temperature into his front tyres as he had hoped.

The race -- held at the fast and iconic Monza circuit -- went extremely well for Ragues and Lahaye, and the car was soon in contention for a podium finish.

Ragues took over for a double-stint in the middle of the race and consolidated his earlier prodigious pace -- until the problem with the fuel hose at the pit stop. Nothing was initially done, but then two hours later it was announced that the car had received a three-minute drive-through penalty, costing the team's expected debut podium finish this year.

"It's unfortunate that such a stupid thing like that meant that we lost the podium, but these things can happen," said Pierre Ragues. "Nobody could have predicted it and it was nobody's fault. Without it, I'm sure we could have got third in what was a very tough race. The car was entirely reliable, and we had no problems behind the wheel. The main thing is that we have shown we can be competitive, and we look forward to a strong performance in the next race."

The next race of this year's Le Mans Series takes place at the Spa 1000km in Belgium from May 9-11.

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