ELMS: First win for IDEC Sport in Silverstone

The 4 Hours of Silverstone saw changeable weather with sunshine and heavy showers which set the stage for an incident-packed and drama-filled race for the fans to enjoy. The UK round of the 2019 European Le Mans Series was won by the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca with Memo Rojas taking the chequered flag after the no26 G-Drive Racing Aurus pitted for fuel four minutes before the end of the race.  

© ELMS/David Lord Photography

The no13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Nigel Moore closed down a two-minute gap to catch the no11 Eurointernational Ligier of Jens Petersen in the final hour of the race.  Petersen took the flag first but was given a 30-second penalty for not coming into the pits for a Black and Orange flag earlier in the race.   The no13 Ligier was declared the winner but was then handed a 1m43s penalty for not respecting the minimum driving time.  So the no11 Ligier was handed the win back and the no13 Ligier was second.

The no88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR was victorious in LMGTE, with Thomas Preining taking the flag 27.8 seconds ahead of the no83 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Rahel Frey.

The race started in dramatic fashion with the track being declared wet at the start as the rain clouds on the horizon got closer. The no21 DragonSpeed Oreca of James Allen kept the lead while behind the leaders there were a few cars that went off at the first corner, with all rejoining the battle. In LMP3 the no17 Ultimate of Jean-Baptiste Lahaye took the lead ahead of pole-sitter Yann Ehrlacher in the no19 M Racing Norma.

In LMGTE, it was the no60 Kessel Racing Ferrari out in front at the start with Sergio Pianezzola moving ahead of the no88 Porsche of Gianluca Giraudi, the Italian dropping back to 3rd as the no83 Kessel Ferrari of Michelle Gatting moved up to second place.

The rain that had been forecasted duly arrived and most of the grid dived into the pits for wet tyres after just 5 minutes of racing. The no21 DragonSpeed of James Allen didn’t pit and stayed out on slicks gambling that the rain would quickly clear. Mikkel Jensen made the same gamble in the no11 Eurointernational Ligier and the Dane found himself in the class lead.

The no43 RLR MSport Oreca of Matthieu Vaxiviere was revelling in the wet conditions, the French driver moving up the field to take the lead as the no21 DragonSpeed Oreca pitted for wets. Vaxiveire held an 18 second lead over the no23 Panis Barthez Competition Oreca of Will Stevens. The no66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Wei Lu ended in the gravel at T7, bringing out the first Full Course Yellow of the race.  The car was quickly recovered and the race went green after only four minutes. A second FCY period was declared ten minutes later when the no22 United Autosports Oreca of Phil Hanson went off at Brooklands: the car lost all power and the British driver was forced to retire.

Once again the race went green very quickly after the car was placed behind the barriers at Luffield. The rain had stopped and the track had started to dry out. The no43 RLR M Sport Oreca was over 30 seconds ahead of the no24 Panis Barthez Ligier of Konstantin Tereschenko.  Mikkel Jensen also held a 30 second lead in LMP3 with Christian England in the no3 United Autosports Ligier in second. It was a Kessel Racing 1-2 as Sergio Pianezzola led in the no60 488 GTE, 15 seconds ahead of the no83 Ferrari of Michelle Gatting.

Matthieu Vaxiviere pitted from the lead to hand over to Canadian John Farano, rejoining the track with an 8-second lead. However, the more experienced drivers in the following cars soon caught and passed Farano, who was down to sixth a few laps later with James Allen back into the lead in the no21 DragonSpeed.

There were further woes for Farano when he was the innocent victim of a collision between the no30 Duqueine Engineering Oreca of Nicolas Jamin and the no14 Inter Europol  Competition Ligier of Sam Dejonghe. The no43 Oreca was clipped by the no14 Ligier and Farano had to return to the pits where a damaged wishbone needed replacing.  Nicolas Jamin was given a drive-through penalty for causing the accident.

A Safety Car was deployed when the no3 United Autosports Ligier of Mike Guasch and the no24 Panis Barthez Competition Ligier of Timothe Buret collided and the LMP3 car ended hitting the concrete wall hard. The American driver was conscious and taken to the circuit medical centre for checks. 

After twenty minutes the race resumed only for a second Safety Car to be deployed almost immediately as the no37 Cool Racing Oreca and the no19 M Racing Norma collided, the Oreca ending up in the middle of the track and was hit by the no30 Duqueine Engineering Oreca. With an hour to go the race resumed with the no39 Graff Racing Oreca of Jonathan Hirschi out in front of the field. The Swiss driver was judged to have acted dangerously during the Safety Car period and was given a drive-through penalty. The no26 G-Drive Racing Aurus of Jean-Eric Vergne took the lead with Memo Rojas in the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca following.

Jens Petersen in the no11 Eurointernational Ligier was nearly a lap ahead of the no13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Nigel Moore, the British driver lapping over five seconds faster than the leader.

In LMGTE the no83 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Rahel Frey was leading with the no88 Proton Competition Porsche of Thomas Preining closing rapidly.  The Austrian passed the Swiss driver on the run into Stowe Corner and started to open up a gap. The no51 Luzich Racing and no60 Kessel Racing Ferraris were battling hard for third place with the no60 488 getting the upper hand.

With 30 minutes to go Ben Hanley in the no21 DragonSpeed was out in front, passing the no26 G-Drive Aurus for the lead.  However, it was short-lived when Ben Hanley had to pit and Jean-Eric Vergne went back into the lead ahead of the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca and the no39 Graff Oreca 07.  It looked like Vergne was heading for the Russian team’s third win in a row, but the French driver had to pit for a ‘splash and dash’ fuel stop. This put Rojas into the lead and the victory.

The no11 Eurointernational Ligier was being caught by the no13 Inter Europol Ligier but it looked like Petersen was going to hold on.  But disaster struck when the team received a black and orange flag to bring the car in to repair a damaged splitter. The German driver stayed out and took the chequered flag but was issued with a drive-through penalty converted to a 30 second time penalty, dropping the no11 Eurointernational Ligier down the order. This promoted the no13 Ligier of Martin Hippe and Nigel Moore into the class winning position.

However, it all changed again when the no13 Ligier was handed a 1m43 second penalty for not respecting the driving time for the bronze driver.  This switched the two cars around again so Mikkel Jensen and Jens Petersen were declared the LMP3 winners of the 4 Hours of Silverstone.  The no2 United Autosports Ligier of Wayne Boyd, Garret Grist and Tommy Erdos took the final podium place.

In LMGTE the no88 Proton Competition Porsche crossed the line to take a debut ELMS win for Thomas Preining, Gianluca Giraudi and Ricardo Sanchez, with the no83 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Michelle Gatting, Manuela Gostner and Rahel Frey taking their second podium finish of the 2019 season.



Source: www.europeanlemansseries.com

Pictures: Kristof Vermeulen & jellybaby.media

ELMS: Second win in a row for G-Drive in Barcelona

G-Drive Racing raced their way to their second consecutive European Le Mans Series (ELMS) win tonight at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Roman Rusinov, Job van Uitert and Jean-Eric Vergne putting in a faultless drive in the Aurus 01 Gibson.

A decision by the TDS run team to double-stint its Dunlop tyres saw it take an early lead while the cars in front opted to change tyres and spent longer in the pits at the first pit stop helping the Russian team to a 1 lap lead over the #39 GRAFF by the end of the race.

“It’s a couple of good weekends I’m very happy,” said Vergne. “There was not a single mistake from my teammates. It was a straight forward race for me, but I had fun pushing.”

Behind the Aurus, it was a thrilling race for the remaining podium spots. The #39 GRAFF of Gommendy, Cougnaud and Hirschi eventually took second place after an epic tussle with the #30 Duqueine Engineering Oreca in the closing laps of the race in total darkness, which came to an end after Gommendy made a move stick and snatched second place for GRAFF. Then, on the final lap of the race, Bradley was passed by Antonin Borga in the Cool Racing Oreca to snatch third spot.

Pole-sitters IDEC Sport could only manage fifth place by the end of the race, an additional pit-stop all but sealing the team’s fate.

In LMP3, despite a late drive-through penalty for contact with the #10 Oregon Team Norma, Inter Europol Competition took its first win of the season with their #13 Ligier JS P3 by 11.806s from the #17 Ultimate Norma M 30 but it was no walk in the park with the class showing some of the most battle-scarred racing of the series to date.

“It was a really good race.” Moore said afterwards “We struggled all weekend – to be fair. We know we don’t have the highest speed amongst the Ligiers or the Normas but we have consistency. We had a reasonably strong race and we were very good in the traffic too. Well done to Inter Europol Competition”

 As the flag dropped Jean-Baptiste Layahe in the #17 Ultimate Norma M30 suffered a terrible start and dropped to last position overall promoting Jan Ehrlacher in the #19 M.Racing Norma M30 to third. 13 laps later the Frenchman would inherit second position as the #10 Norma M30 was boxed for repairs.  Soon after the first stops Millara in the #19 had contact with David Heinemeier Hansson in the #56 Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR resulting in the Frenchman having to stop for repairs. Next up, Ross Kaiser in the #6 360 Racing Ligier spun at turn 7 causing a Full Course Yellow (FCY).

At almost the same time the second 360 Racing Ligier was the victim of a fuel fire as Andreas Lasteratos brought the car in at the end of his stint that saw him and one of the crew members suffer minor burns and the car garaged for repairs. Following attention at the circuit Medical Center Laskeratos was cleared fit and returned to drive the final stint and take the car to 13th overall, some 6 laps down.

Having started on pole and traded first place through the race the #11 Eurointernational Ligier went off at Turn 7 and then was eventually retired while another Full Course Yellow episode kicked off.  Despite a valiant tussle in the closing laps with Lahaye in the #17 Ultimate, Tommy Erdos in the #2 United autosports Ligier couldn’t quite hang onto second place and closed out the podium 7.169s behind Lahaye.

In GTE, Luzich Racing’s #51 Ferrari 488 GTE took a comfortable win as Alessandro Pier Guidi, Nicklas Nielsen and Fabien Lavergne finished over half a minute clear of the rest of the field; the win giving the AF-Corse run team the points lead in the series.

“We did a very good job working together. We worked hard to get race pace sorted here. We knew tyre degradation would be key. Nicklas did a good job, I just had to manage the pace. Luzich Racing did an amazing job,” Pier Guidi said of the team’s second win of the year.

The initial challenge from the #60 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE faded after multiple incidents for Sergio Pianezzola during his stint eventually dropped the car to last place finishing some 2 laps adrift.

Thus the battle for second ended up between the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari and #55 Spirit of Race 488 with the (still) Le Mans liveried car taking second after a strong run from Matteo Cressoni, Wei Lu and Jeff Segal. The Spirit of Race car eventually finished 6.486s behind to round out the podium.

ELMS: Dragonspeed wins 4 Hours of Le Castellet

The opening race of the 2019 European Le Mans Series gave us 4 hours of uninterrupted racing under sunny French skies and more than a few interesting battles over all three classes.  Dragonspeed scored their first overall win since Spa 2016 in the LMP2 class, while Ultimate scored their first ever win in the LMP3 class.  In LMGTE it were the series debutants who took the top 2 spots of the podium with the Luzich Racing Ferrari on top, followed by the all female Kessel Racing Ferrari.

Roman Rusinov started from pole in the #26 Aurus G-Drive with Paul Lafargue in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca and James Allen in the #21 G-Drive close behind him.  Allen had a flying start and went on from fifth to third in the first round before taking over the lead from Rusinov in lap 10.  It took Allen only 5 laps to ease away from the competition, building his lead already up to 20 seconds in lap 15. 

Rusinov dropped back to fifth place in his first stint, while Andrea Pizzitola stormed through the field from P12 to P2 in his #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07.  Behind him, Paul Lafargue held on to third place, followed by another Oreca, the #30 Duqueine Engineering of Pierre Ragues.  Ragues moved ahead of Lafargue and Pizzitola and after nearly 20 laps into the race, he got into second place, although 24 seconds behind Allen in the leading Dragonspeed. 

Henrik Hedman took over the leading car in the first round of pitstops but saw his lead over Ragues, who stayed in the car, dropping down quickly before Ragues took over the lead.  Hedman was up against some of the quickest drivers of the field, dropped back a bit in the order but managed to hold on to sixth place before handing the car back over to James Allen at the second stop. Meanwhile Job Van Uitert was in the G-Drive Aurus, making up lost time caused by a tyre problem Rusinov had in his first stint.

After the third round of pitstops, all was still to play for in the LMP2 class. Nicolas Jamin still lead the pack in the #30 Duqueine but had Ben Hanley now behind him in the Dragonspeed, who was in a different pitstop strategy.  When Jamin had to stop for fuel, Hanley got in the lead with a margin of 46 seconds on the #28 IDEC Sport of Paul Loup Chatin with Norma Nato in the G-Drive right on his tail. 

Hanley held on to the lead and scored the team’s first victory since Spa 2016. Chatin crossed the line in second place 16 seconds later with a comfortable margin over Richard Bradley in the Duqueine Engineering who went past Nato in the closing stages of the race.  Behind the leading pack, the #22 United Autosports Ligier was the first non-Oreca at the finish in sixth place, one lap down from Hanley & co. 

French team Ultimate scored their first victory in the series with their #17 Norma M30 LMP3 after 4 years thanks to a late race challenge over the #11 Eurointernational.  Mikkel Jensen went on from fifth on the grid to first in the opening lap, holding off Lucas Legeret in the #19 M.Racing Norma and Jean-Baptiste Lahaye in the #17 Ultimate. David Droux in the #9 Realteam Norma also had a strong opening stint, moving up to second place tailgating Jensen in the Eurointernational Ligier, but unable to take over the lead. 

The top 2 remained the same after the first round of stops with Jensen still in front of Droux.  Damiano Fiorivanti who had been quick all week and set Saturday’s pole time now was in the #10 Oregon Norma and up to third place right behind Droux.  The two battled for several laps until Fiorivanti was cut off by the #39 Oreca who went into pitlane and sent the Italian into a spin. Luckily without any damage, but Fiorivanti lost precious time to the leading 2 cars. 

Jens Petersen took over the #11 Eurointernational but was chased by the more experienced Matthieu Lahaye in the #17 Ultimate Norma who quietly got up into the order after the second round of stops. Lahaye quickly caught up with Peterson, passed him and never looked back.  By the end of the race the French team had a gap of 1 lap over the rest of the field. Petersen managed to hold on to second place and a well deserved podium finish, despite being under pressure from Nigel Moore in the #13 Inter Europol Ligier who drove an impressive final stint from sixth to second.   The #10 Oregon and #7 Nielsen Racing Norma’s completed the top 5 of an exciting race in the LMP3 class.  

In LMGTE it was ELMS debutants Luzich Racing who took the honours after dominating the race from start to finish. Fabien Lavergne got into the lead in the opening lap, passing the #77 Dempsey-Proton Competition Porsche of Christian Ried. The Frenchman stormed away from the rest of the field giving himself a comfortable lead. Behind him, Egidio Perfetti in the #56 Team Project 1 passed Ried and Felbermayr in the second Proton Porsche up to second place. By the end of the first stint, Wei Lu got up to the front in the #66 JMW Ferrari in third position. 

By the end of the second stint, Lavergne had a gap of about a minute when he handed over the #51 Ferrari to Nicklas Nielsen. The second round of pitstop shook up the order quite significantly, with Rahel Frey now in second place in the #83 Kessel Racing Ferrari after passing Christian Ried in the #77 Porsche. Frey had a scare when she clipped the #8 Nielsen LMP3 into a spin but got away with a warning flag before she turned the car over to Michelle Gatting. 

© ELMS/ Jakob Ebrey-JEP

Alessandro Pier Guidi ran the final sting in the #51 Luzich Ferrari, bringing the car home with a one lap lead over Michelle Gatting in the #83 Kessel Racing Ferrari. 12 seconds behind her, Matteo Cairoli finished third in the #77 Dempsey-Proton after a late pass over the #66 JMW Ferrari. The #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari completed the top 5. 

The second round of the 2019 European Le Mans Series is scheduled for Sunday May 12th at  the Italian temple of speed in Monza. 

Race results

 Kristof Vermeulen.

MLMC: Lanan Racing wins incidentful opening race of the season

The Michelin Le Mans Cup season kicked off last Saturday in a grand style, filled with scrappy but great battles, incidents, safety cars, full course yellows and a raft of penalties applied!

In a race that was dominated by the speed of the Norma M30’s Duncan Tappy and Mike Benham in the #25 Lanan Racing Norma took the chequered flag for the win winners, the British duo keeping out of trouble after a penalty for the #3 DKR Norma pushed them into the lead late in the race. With the Lanan car on the top step the next seven places all went to the Norma M30 chassis, the first Ligier being the #24 United Autosports car of Boyd and Husain in ninth place.

Second on track was the #9 GRAFF Norma, however a 35 second post-race penalty for not reducing its speed to 80kph under FCY dropped them to fifth overall. The car was in contention throughout and led the race in the second half, before Tappy made a bold move up the inside past Eric Trouillet into Signes corner for second place. The #39 sister car which originally finished fourth received the same penalty dropping it to sixth overall. The two Graff penalties pushed the #3 DKR Engineering Norma of Kirmann and Horr to an eventual second place.

Fifth on the road was the #2 Nielsen Racing Norma of Tony Wells and Colin Noble 12 seconds behind the leader. Despite taking advantage of the two safety car periods Noble was unable claim a podium on a race result only but posthumously got to taste the champagne for third following the Graff penalties.

The first safety car period came after John Schauerman lost control of the #4 Cool Racing Ligier at the final corner, which sent him flying backwards into the inside armco hard. The second SC period came shortly after the race restarted, following contact between the #5 DKR Norma and #12 Eurointernational Ligier of Jean-Marc Littman at the same corner, ending Littman’s race and earning the DKR car a penalty. Penalties were handed out across the board for all sorts of infractions, including a 12 cars that had to head to the pits for two-minute stop and go for passing through a red light in pit lane resulting in a massive shake-up of the final positions. Finally, a Full Course Yellow (FCY) was thrown due to the RLR Msport Ligier of Tom Olsen hitting the barriers at the exit of Signes hard ending the team’s race.  

In the GT3 class the #8 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 of Sergio Pianezzola and Giacomo Piccini won with an enormous lead after the Luzich Racing Ferrari was one of the cars handed a two-minute penalty for jumping the pitlane red light. However, the #8 were handed a penalty for a drive time infringement in the final minutes but their lead was so big that even after serving it, they finished over a minute ahead.

The #54 SPS Automotive Mercedes crossed the line second, benefitting from the penalties and various dramas in the class, ahead of the Luzich car which salvaged third. Two cars had late-race issues, the #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari, which suffered a puncture and eventually fell to seventh and the #7 Scuderia Villorba Corse Mercedes which lost a wheel in the closing laps and retired from fifth.  The Krypton Mercedes also promised a strong result but an early collision with the BHK Ligier damaged its front-end terminally meaning #83 SVC Lamborghini finished fourth and the #99 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage took fifth.

John Stevens

Sportscarglobal.com

FIA WEC: Easy win for Toyota, rain causes late race drama in LMP2 and GTE

In a masterclass of speed and despite a late downpour causing chaos, Toyota Gazoo Racing scored a dominant victory at yesterday’s return of the FIA WEC to Sebring. The #8 TS050 of Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima took the flag after eight hours and seemed te be on course to complete the entire 1000 mile distance despite multiple Full Course Yellow (FCY) periods eating into the race time and the rain pouring down at the end of the final hour. 

Starting on pole in front of of the #7 sister car (driven by Jose Maria Lopez, Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway), Sébastien Buemi rocketed ahead to pull clear of the field. After just four laps, the pair of Toyotas had the measure of Sebring’s infamous bumps and begun to lap the back markers. As night arrived the #8 car had opened up a comfortable lead over the #7. 

What looked to be a faultless display by both of the Toyota crews was brought to a swift end when, with just over three hours remaining, Lopez hit the kerb hard at turn 15 in an effort to avoid the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage. The Argentinian had to make an unscheduled stop while the car was checked, eating up four minutes of their lead over the remainder of the LMP1 field.

With less than 15 minutes to run Nakajima took a large slide off the track despite having changed to wet tyres. Although the Japanese ace lost only a handful of seconds before regaining control, the close call could have ended their race.  “It was interesting but tough for me in the end. We knew we had a gap so I didn’t take any risks,” said Nakajima after the race. “The track was so slippy, like ice! On the start straight I couldn’t even go flat. I’m so happy to finish without damage on the car.”

The final 12 minutes of the race were run behind the safety car following Loic Duval’s #28 TDS Racing Oreca LMP2 going straight on into a tyre wall at low-speed – guaranteeing the #8 crew their fourth win of the 2018-2019 Super Season and leaving them favourite to win the World Drivers’ title with two races, Spa and Le Mans, remaining. 

LMP1

Thanks again to the somewhat confusing EoT regulations, the privateer LMP1 teams were again racing for scraps as the disparity between the hybrid and non-hybrid machines was glaringly displayed. WEC returnee and fan favourite Brendon Hartley claimed a podium finish for the #11 SMP Racing BR1 which survived an early explosive tyre failure to ultimately finish third.

It was a race to forget for the Rebellion Racing team. The #1 R13 had initially looked on target to claim the last of the class silverware until, with three hours to go, the car hit issues sending it to the garage. The sister #3 Rebellion also suffered a number of mechanical issues throughout the race which relegated it to a distant fourth in LMP1 and behind the top three LMP2 cars overall. 

The #17 SMP machine was fast from the start of the race but Egor Orudzhev crashed into the barriers at turn one just before the two-hour mark ending the car’s race; the Russian was running third at the time, having pulled clear of the #3 Rebellion in the opening quarter of the race. Also failing to finish was the DragonSpeed BR1 Gibson, which was pushed into the garage with a mechanical issue with two hours and 40 minutes still on the clock.

LMP2

A bold move on the opening lap of the race proved to be decisive for the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing crew of David Heinemeier-Hansson, Jordan King and Will Stevens. Passing their sister #38 car at turn one on the opening lap, the trio then displayed a masterclass in the LMP2 category and remained unchallenged for the entire race taking the class victory by more than 50 seconds.  What better way to enter the WEC championship for this new driver trio in the #37 Oreca ?

It was not joy throughout the Jackie Chan DC Racing team however as their pole-sitting #38 Oreca 07 endured a frustrating race loosing almost an hour in the pits with a gearbox selector fault (an issue originally seen by multiple teams when the current LMP2 chassis was first released). Perhaps adding insult to injury for the #38 crew they lost further time after a bizarre issue with the door failing to open during a driver change. The car eventually finished 30th, last of the classified runners.

The #36 Signatech Alpine A470 of Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre and Pierre Thiriet ran a clean race but could not match the pace of DC Racing, the all-French team finishing a solid second in class. DragonSpeed picked up the last of the class silverware as the #31 Oreca of ex-Toyota driver Anthony Davidson, Pastor Maldonado and Ricardo Gonzalez fought to overcome two unscheduled pitstops to replace the rear-wing – once for a failure on the bumps and once after Maldonado swiped the barriers on the exit of turn 17. 

Despite a massive effort to get the car from last on the grid to P2 in class after an hour of frantic driving by Nyck De Vries, the Racing Team Nederland Dallara ultimately finished fifth in class.  De Vries had been quick all week, from the testdays ahead of the race to his final stint, showing the rwa pace that's in the Dallara chassis.  A problem with one of the FIA telemetry cables cost the team a 12 minute pitstop for repairs and probably their first podium finish.  

GTE Pro

GTE Pro again proved to be the stand-out category of the race with 2 laps separating the first 10 of the eleven runners and almost every entry in the 11-car class enjoying a spell in the lead. 

Despite the back-and-forth between the teams, it was the heavy rain with less than 20 minutes of the race remaining that made the decisive difference; until this point the top 8 cars were all on the same lap. With teams scrambling to swap their slicks for wets, Gianmaria Bruni – in the #91 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR – jumped the #81 BMW Team MTEK M8 GTE (which had been the standout performer in class) in the pits and with the late safety car to recover the #28 TDS Racing Oreca, the Italian held on to secure the victory for Porsche.

The #81 BMW M8 GTE finished second, the best result of the season for Martin Tomczyk, Nicky Catsburg and Alexander Sims, with the #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK Ford GT claiming the final spot on the podium; the Ford had led for the majority of the opening four hours, but faded as the race went on. 

James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Davide Rigon ensured four manufacturers were represented in the top four as the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo finished ahead of the #92 Porsche of Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen, Estre losing time late on with a stop & go penalty for rear-ending the #95 Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Darren Turner. The Aston was running in second at the time, but the contact, which sent turner spinning across the grass, dropped the car down the order, ultimately finishing 10th in class. 

GTE Am

The #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing secured top honours in GTE Am to make it a Porsche clean sweep of the GTE classes with Matt Campbell, Christian Ried and Julien Andlauer snatching the win from the #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari which received a penalty for side-to-side contact which sent the Team Project 1 Porsche into the barriers early on in the race. 

Thankfully for the Project 1 team, who suffered an engine fire in testing which destroyed their original car, the damage proved to only be minor and thanks to a strong charge from Egidio Perfetti, Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Lindsey, the team recovered to the third step of the podium. 

Gulf Racing took advantage of a black and orange flag for the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin – after the rear diffuser on the ageing V8 Vantage broke apart on track – to finish fourth. The TF Sport car crossed the line sixth after hasty repairs – behind the MR Racing Ferrari with the #98 Aston Martin or Paul Dalla Lana, Pedrom Lamy and Mathias Lauda rounding out the class 2 laps down. 

The FIA World Endurance Championship now heads back to Europe for the penultimate round of the 18 month Super-Season with its second visit to Spa-Francorchamps this season on May 4th. 

Race results

Asian LMS: Algarve Pro Racing wins in Sepang, United Autosports champions

Algarve Pro Racing win the 4 Hours of Sepang and United Autosports win the 2018/19 Asian Le Mans Series!  Le Mans entries for United Autosports, ARC Bratislava & Inter Europol Competition (LMP2) and Car Guy (LMGTE Am).

Second place in the 4 Hours of Sepang was good enough for the #22 United Autosports Ligier JS P2 Nissan of Phil Hanson and Paul De Resta to win the outright Championship in the 2018/19 Asian Le Mans Series. The #24 Algarve Pro Racing team of Andrea Pizzitola, Harrison Newey and Ate Dirk De Jong gave it their all, winning the race and finishing second in the Championship.

In the LMP2 Am Trophy, ARC Bratislava finished 4thoverall and 1stin class in the 4 Hours of Sepang to claim the Championship win. Driving the ARC Bratislava entry were Miro Konopka, Ling Kang and Darren Burke.  Their main title rivals, the #23 United Autosports Ligier JS P2 Nissan suffered a gear box problem that saw them retire from the race. The #25 Algarve Pro Racing entry also retired from the race, securing the championship for ARC Bratislava.

The fight for the LMP3 battle was intense throughout the race, but ultimately it was the #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier JS P3 driven Jakub Smiechowski and Martin Hippe that won the race in dominant style to claim the LMP3 Championship title. In 2ndplace was the #7 Ecurie Ecosse / Nielsen Racing Ligier JS P3 and third was the #2 United Autosports Ligier JS P3. Third place was good enough for the team to secure 2ndplace in the Championship for Chris Buncombe, Garett Grist and Wayne Boyd.

In GT Japanese team Car Guy of Takeshi Kimura, Kei Cozzolino and James Calado capped off a fantastic season by making it four race wins from four starts in their #11 Ferrari 488 GT3 to win the GT Championship! It was not a simple exercise as they were forced to withstand significant pressure from the pole sitting #88 TianShi Racing Team Audi R8 LMS. The #88, raced by Xu Wei, Chen Wei An and Dries Vanthoor finished the race second and the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Ozzy Negri Jr and Francesco Piovanetti finished 3rd, and claimed 2ndplace in the Championship.

The GT Am title went to the second TianShi Racing Team Audi R8 LMS, the #66. Their race unfortunately finished in the garage with a DNF.

On top of the added pressure of it being the Championship decider, the race was run in very high temperatures and humidity making for one of the toughest races of the season. This made the success of the winning teams all the more sweet.

Race results
Championship results