During the dramatic Le Mans Series 1000 km of Spa race yesterday the IPB Spartak Racing Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT showed impressive form in the LM GT1 class and came very close to scoring its first win of the year.

In front of a record crowd of 35,000 spectators and in temperatures of more than 26 degrees Centigrade, the Le Mans Series put on another fantastic show at the third race of the 2008 season in Spa-Francorchamps with drama throughout the 1000km race.

A fantastic drive from the Frenchman Guillaume Moreau in the Corvette helped the Luc Alphand Aventures team take its second win of the season in the LM GT1 category.

It was a dramatic race in which the IPB Spartak Racing Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT showed magnificent form and came close to scoring its first win of the year. Moreau, sharing with Alphand and Patrice Goueslard, battled throughout the opening two hours with the Team Modena Aston Martin of Antonio Garcia and Tomas Enge before the British car had an alternator belt failure which ensured a long stop in the pits.

The two drivers recovered to finish third, recording the fastest lap of the race with a 2m16.625s lap and finished three laps down on the winning Corvette.

The Lamborghini took second place having led for much of the second half of the race before the luggage cover at the front of the car flew up and left Roman Rusinov unsighted for much of the lap. "I had bad luck with a prototype which had trouble braking," said the Russian, who also had a punctured tyre. He completed a slow lap and dropped to second place as the Corvette powered past, but recorded another podium, a lap behind after the car's most competitive showing to date and the Russian team will take heart from the race.

The Strakka Racing Aston Martin took fourth place after a race that was punctuated by spins. Peter Hardman and Nick Leventis finished nine laps behind the winning Corvette on their debut in the series, and hope to improve on the result at the Nurburgring in August.

In the LM GT1 manufacturers' championship standing after three rounds Lamborghini is in third place with 19 points; the 8 it collected at Spa at the weekend being adding to the points it collected in Barcelona (6) and Monza (5). Top of the category is Corvette (34) followed by Aston Martin (21).