Pace Car Causes Massive Collision at Le Castellet

This year's Le Mans Series kicked off last weekend at Le Castellet, and it brought with it a few interesting moments. Apart from the fact that Henri Pescarolo's team made a winning return to the series and grabbed victory with their Judd-powered LMP1 driven by Christophe Tinseau, Julien Jousse and Emmanuel Collard, the 6-hour race had a chaotic start to begin with.

And it was the pace car that started the insanity on the French circuit, as it didn't made its track exit as scheduled.

At the exit of the last turn before the lights turned green, everyone was expecting a clear track ahead and started pumping up their engines, with their feet prepared to step on the gas. Surprise, surprise, however, as the pace car decided to stay on the track for one more lap, causing the drivers in front to brake abruptly on the start/finish line.

The confusion was caused by the fact that the organizers had decided to do an additional parade lap before the race start, a decision that was not communicated in due time to all teams. And while the front-runners were able to break accordingly, the GT field wasn't so lucky.

With everyone revving their engines in the back, as visibility was poor due to the cars in front, several competitors made contact, including Felbermayr-Proton, ProSpeed and Imsa (all 911 GT3-RSRs).

For a clearer picture of what happened last weekend at Le Castellet, check out the video below.