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South Africa's Jordan Pepper played a key role in securing Bentley’s dominant victory in Saturday’s Paul Ricard 1000 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup race. The team started the race on pole position following a great team effort by Jordan and his co-drivers, Briton Steven Kane and French driver Jules Gounon, but the trio had to work hard for the win, which also made up for the bitter disappointment of their being passed while leading on the last lap in the 2018 race.

“Wow, what a day!” Jordan admitted. “We have worked so hard for this win and I am so proud and happy for the whole team. “We had a great qualifying — Steven continued Jules and my good average to secure pole and I took the opening stint. “I had a decent start, but the Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG got by, so I had to make good use of two early safety car periods and managed to take the lead back and was able to hand the car over to Steven in the lead. 

“We stuck to our strategy, which worked our way with the safety cars, although we had a bit of a scare when a wheel nut got stuck in the gun while changing the front-left tyre later in the race, which cost us a few seconds. “Fortunately we had enough in hand to also fend off a late charge from the Orange1 Ferrari and Jules made good to bring it home for a brilliant win, so all very good in the end.”

“Bentley is celebrating 100 years in 2019, so this was a great result all round and hopefully the first of a few good successes this year. “Now the focus shifts to the big one — it’s good to head to the Spa 24 off a win so let’s hope that’s a good omen! “Huge thanks to my teammates and the entire Bentley M Sport team — this is a day to remember for sure!”