ELMS: Red Bull Ring practice and qualifying pictures

A selection of our pictures from practice and qualifying sessions for the 4 hours of Red Bull Ring this afternoon.  Weather has been unpredictable all weekend with sunshine and pooring rain.  Predictions for the race change by the minute, so we could have a very interesting afternoon ... 

ELMS: Pole position for Paul Loup Chatin on the Red Bull Ring

Paul Loup Chatin continued to dominate the LMP2 class on a dry and sunny Red Bull Ring this afternoon, securing pole postition for tomorrows race in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca.  

Chatin took the team's second pole position of the season in his final flying lap at the end of the session with a time of 1.19.246. He ultimately pushed Nicolas Jamin in the #29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca from pole position with only 0.019 seconds. Norman Nato secured third position on the grid in his #24 Racing Engineering Oreca, 0.122 seconds slower than Jamin. Nico Lapierre set the fourth fastest time in 1.19.423. 

Championship leaders G-Drive Racing will start from fifth place tomorrow, immediately followed by their main challengers TDS Racing. The battle for pole was very close, with the first six cars within half a second. First non-Oreca on the grid is the #22 United Autosports Ligier of Filipe Albuquerque after setting a best time of 1.19.950, 0.704 seconds behind the fastest Oreca. Felipe Nasr was the quickest of the Dallara drivers, starting from 10th position tomorrow in the #47 Cetilar Villorba Corse. 

Mikkel Jensen seemed to have secured pole position in the LMP3 class in AT Racing's home race.  However, his laptime of 1.26.408 was deleted by the race stewards due to exceeding track limits.  This promoted the #17 Ultimate Nissan powered Norma M30 of Mathieu Lahaye to pole, with a time of 1.26.519. 17 year old Swiss driver Lucas Légéret in the #19 M.Racing-YMR made it a Norma front row, just 0.175 seconds from pole.  The #15 RLR Msport Ligier will start third after Job van Uitert set a time of 1.26.703. Qualifying in the LMP3 class was (very) tight again, under 0.5 seconds separating the first seven cars on the grid. Antonio Borga in the #4 Cool Ligier and Ricardo Sanchez in the #8 DKR Engineering Norma completed this afternoon's top 5. 

Miguel Molina claimed pole position in the LMGTE class with his #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari F488.  His time of 1.28.827 was 0.098 seconds faster than Matteo Cairoli in the #88 Proton Competition Porsche. Surprisingly, this is the first pole position for last years champions JMW since Hungary 2013. The second row of the grid will be occupied by 2 Ferrari's:  the #83 Krohn Racing Ferrari of Andrea Bertolini (1.28.967) and the #55 Spirit of Race of Matt Griffin. The #77 Proton and #80 Ebimotors Porsches will close tomorrow's grid with fifth and sixth place in class.  

Free Practice 2

This morning's Free Practice session started dry but within minutes the clouds moved in and the heavens opened sending the field into the pits for wet tyres. 

Paul-Loup Chatin in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca again set the fastest time with a 1:19.616 on lap 4, just moments before the heavy rain began to fall, +0.134s ahead of Andrea Pizzitola in the #26 G-Drive Oreca. Next up was Norman Nato pushing the #24 Racing Engineering Oreca to a 1:19.832. The first of the non-Oreca chassis was the #35 SMP Racing Dallara P217  in fifth position with a time of 1:20.952, +1.336s off the leading Oreca's time. It was another bad session for the Ligiers with the fastest being the #32 United Autosports car in which Hugo de Sadeleer set a 1:21.963 on lap 4. 

In the LMP3 class there was nearly 13s separating 1st and last spot. Job van Uitert took his #15 RLR MSport Ligier JS P3 to the top of the table setting a 1:27.176 on lap 5. Second was David Droux in the #19 M. Racing - YMR, 0.604s off the Dutchman's pace. Third fastest went to American Sean Rayhall who took the #2 United Autosports Ligier he shares with John Falb to a 1:28.486 lap. Yesterday's fastest class car the #17 Ultimate finished the session in penultimate place after setting it's best tine of 1:38.237 on lap 34. 

Ferrari pipped Porsche in the LMGTE class with Matt Griffin setting a time of 1:29.845 in the #55 Spirit of Race F488. Second was Dennis Olsen in the #77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR followed by Fabio Babini in the Ebimotors 911; 0.029s adrift with a 1:30.051. Yesterday's class fastest, JMW Motorsport, finished the session in fourth place followed by the #88 Proton Competition and the #83 Krohn Racing Ferrari.

Race start tomorrow is scheduled right on midday at 12.00h.  The weather forecast has been changing all weekend, but it looks like we're up for a wet race tomorrow afternoon. 

Qualifying results: 

LMP2
LMP3
LMGTE

Results Free practice 2


Text: John Stevens & Kristof Vermeulen
Pictures: Kristof Vermeulen & JellyBaby.Media

ELMS: The European Le Mans Series arrive in Austria for the third race of the season

The European Le Mans Series return to the Red Bull Ring this weekend for their third race of the 2018 season.  With its stunning setting on the Styrian Alps and top of the line accomodation, the Red Bull Ring is certainly one of the team's – and media's – favourite tracks on the calendar. 

42 cars arrived in Austria for Sunday's 4 hour race; 18 in both the LMP2 and LMP3 class and 6 in the LMGTE category.  G-Drive's Roman Rusinov and Andrea Pizzitola arrive in Spielberg as championship leaders with a total of 37 points, and are joined again by newly crowned Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne.  The TDS trio of François Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Loïc Duval are just 1 point behind with 36 points.  It's still unclear though if they will complete in all the remaining rounds of the championship as the team initially only intended to do the opening three races of the season. 

 Le Castellet winners Norman Nato, Olivier Pla and Paul Petit are currently third with 35 points.  All is still to play for between those three teams, so we might well see the championship go undecided 'till the chequered flag at Portimao end October. 

In the LMP3 class it's the #11 Eurointernational drivers Giorgio Mondini and Kay Van Berlo who are leading the series with a 10 point bonus (40 vs 30) on Ross Kaiser and Terrence Woodward in the #6 360 Racing Ligier. Currently in third position with 25,5 points are Rob Garofall, John Farano and Job Van Uitert in the #15 RLR Msport.  Watch out for the #9 AT Racing Ligier this weekend, as it's the home race for father and son Talkanitsa and Mikkel Jensen.

JMW Motorsport leads the LMGTE championship with 37 points after their last lap victory at Le Castellet and a fourth place in Monza. ELMS debutants Ebimotors had a strong start of the season with two podium finishes in the Porsche 911 RSR and are trailing JMW with 31 points. Last years winners at the Red Bull Ring Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Aaron Scott won the race in Monza in May and will be eager do to that again here on Sunday afternoon. 

Oreca dominated today's free practice session, taking up the first eight positions in the LMP2 class. All but one Oreca (the #31 APR Rebellion) finished ahead of the Dallara's and Ligiers in the field.  

Paul Loup Chatin in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca 07 was quickest around the Austrian track. His laptime of 1.20.067 was just 3 thousands of a second faster than Norman Nato in the #24 Racing Engineering Oreca. Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #33 TDS Racing Oreca went third fastest, only 21 thousands behind Nato.  

The first non-Oreca chassis was the #35 SMP Racing Dallara of Matevos Isaakyan who went round in 1.20.836, just under 0.8 seconds slower than Chatin.  Wayne Boyd was the quickest of the Ligier drivers in 10th position overall with a laptime of 1.21.053. 

In LMP3 it was Ultimate who went fastest in their Nissan powered Norma M30. Matthieu Lahaye set a 1.26.927, just 0.018 seconds ahead of Matthew Bell in the #3 United Autosports Ligier.  Another Norma on third place: the #19 M.Racing-YMR of Lucas Legeret, just under 0.4 seconds behind Lahaye. Sean Rayhall in the second United Autosports Ligier and Timur Boguslavkiy in the #5 NEFIS by Speed Factory Ligier rounded out the top 5. 

JMW Motorsport went quickest in the LMGTE class with Miguel Molina at the wheel of the Ferrari F488 in 1.28.829.  Matteo Cairoli put the #88 Proton Competition Porsche on second place, 0.570 seconds behind the Spaniard. Andrea Bertolini in the #83 Krohn Racing Ferrari set the third fastest time this afternoon. 

Free Practice 1 results

Text: Kristof Vermeulen

Images: Kristof Vermeulen and JellyBaby.Media

Michelin Le Mans Cup: DKR Engineering dominates in Austria

Alex Toril and Jean Glorieux extended their Le Mans Cup championship lead on Saturday when they crossed the line first at Austria’s Red Bull Ring in their #3 DKR Engineering Norma M30 Nissan LMP3. 

SPV Motorsport started from pole position in their Ligier JSP3, edging out the eventual race winners with just 0,01 seconds in the final lap op qualifying. Jean Glorieux didn't wait too long to take the lead in his Norma M30 and passed Alvaro Fontes in the second lap of the race, immediately building up a gap to the rest of the field. 

When Alain Costa spins into the gravel at T4, the first full course yellow of the race is being waived. At the restart Alex Kapadia in the #14 RLR Msport Ligier - who started on 18th position - dives into second place and starts to close the gap with the leading Norma, down to 3,4 seconds. 

Fuel, tyres and new drivers in the pitstop window, after which Alex Toril in the #3 Norma now leads Ross Warburton in the #14 Ligier. The RLR M-Sport team didn't comply with the minimum pitstop time, so had to take a stop & go penalty, crushing down their chances for a victory or a podium finish. The #79 Nielsen Racing Ligier of  Colin Noble now got up to second, with the #65 Graff Ligier of Emilien Carde behind in third position.

Alexander Toril held on to his lead in the final part of the race to cross the line first with a 13,5 second margin on the #79 Ligier and the #65 Graff Ligier. This is the second win for the team after their success at the Road to Le Mans race last month. In the championship, DKR Engineering (61 points) now has a 17 point lead over Nielsen Racing (44 points).  

In the GT3 class the honours went to the #46 Ebimotors Lamborghini Huracan where Emanuele Busnelli and Fabio Babini took a lights to flag win from pole position. The #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari 458 Italia which had been fast all weekend in the hands of Italian Maurizio Mediani and Swiss Christoph Ulrich finished second 15.746 behind the Lamborghini. Flick Haigh and Joe Osborne brought Optimum Motorsport’s #75 Audi R8 LMS home for the final step on the podium in 1:59:37.233, 24.6 seconds adrift of the winners. 

The #5 Ram Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 of Remon Vos and Tom Onslow-Cole failed to finish after an incident in the second hour at Turn 1. Contact with an LMP3 (#33) left the right rear wheel of the Mercedes smashed as Vos spun at the end of the T1 kerbs. Although the Mercedes made it back to the pits the car was retired after 1:11:26.907 and 44 laps. 

Race results

Championship standings

Kristof Vermeulen

Part of this article first was published at www.sportscarglobal.com 

ELMS 2017 - 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring: Race report

Arriving at the track yesterday morning, it seemed like we were in for a wet - if not very wet - ELMS race in the afternoon.  With an ever changing weather forecast, going from rain all race to rain in the final hour, teams faced a tough decision going for a wet or dry setup. When the sun came trough right before the pitwalk and autograph session, the sky cleared out, temperatures went up and it seemed like we might stay dry out there.  Apart from a few raindrops in the final half hour of the session, the weather stayed dry until a few hours after the race, giving us a highly entertaining 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring.

Léo Roussel held on to the lead into the first corner, holding off Nicolas Lapierre in the #21 Dragonspeed and Hugo de Sadeleer in the #32 United Autosport. Lapierre would eventually fall back to fourth position in the first hour of the race, under pressure of Timothé Buret in the Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier. It was the start of an intriguing battle between the G-Drive racing Oreca an the United Autosport Ligier for the next four hours. 

1 hour into the race, Hugo de Sadeleer was in the lead in the #32 Ligier, with Nicolas Lapierre in the #21 Dragonspeed right on his tail. The #27 SMP Racing Dallara started strong in its first ELMS race of the season, Egor Orudzhev now up to third place & eventually leading the race after 66 laps. An early - extra - pitstop in the second hour, hydraulic problems and a post-race one minute penalty for not respecting the driving time of Orudhzev (0.525 seconds short !!) would drop them down the order by the end of the race.

After the second round of pitstops Will Owen took over the wheel of the leading #32 Oreca, but now had Nicolas Minassian in his mirrors.  Minassian drove a fantastic stint, getting the #26 Oreca back into the lead two thirds into the race. He got held up though by Matt McMurry in the #27 Algarve Pro Racing, losing him at least 15 seconds Mnassian declared after the race. McMurry got a drive through penalty for not respecting the blue flags during the race. That delay got the #32 back in contention, closing up the gap again. Meanwhile both Graff Oreca's slipped into third and fourth position. James Allen tird in the #40 ahead of the #39.  

3 hours into the race and Roussel was back in the lead again in the G-Drive Oreca 07 with the United Autosports Ligier just above 10 seconds behind him. Filipe Albuquerque was in the #32, trying to chase down the Frenchman.  Henrik Hedman got back into fourth place in the #21 Dragonspeed Oreca, but saw its chances for a podium finish vanish away when he ran out of fuel. Hedman tried to crawl back in the pitlane, but stranded 2 corners before the end of the lap, causing the sole full course yellow of the race. 

The ultimate round of pitstops would again decide about winning or losing the race. United Autosport didn't change their, giving them a huge time advantage over the G-Drive, and more importantly getting back into the lead. Filipe Albuquerque brought the car home, able to fight of a late charge of Léo Roussel who came back up to 4 seconds by the checquered flag.  After 4 hours, the #39 Graff Oreca crossed the line in third place, a well deserved podium for Eric Trouillet, Paul Petit and Enzo Gibbert. The second Graff Oreca held on to fourth place, Panis-Barthez competition rounding out the top 5 after the post-race time penalty for SMP Racing.  Racing Team Nederland with Jan Lammers and Frits Van Eerd scored their best ELMS finish yet, crossing the line in seventh position. 

Victory in LMP2 but drama for United Autosport in the LMP3 class yesterday. John Falb & Sean Rayhall crossed the line in first place after 4 hours of racing, but got a 25 second penalty after the race for not reducing their speed fast enough under full course yellow during the race. This gave the crew of the #11 Eurointernational their first victory in the ELMS for Giorgio Mondini and Davide Uboldi. 

Mikkel Jensen in the #9 AT Racing Ligier had the best start in class, ahead of Sean Rayhall in the #2 United Autosport Ligier. Jensen held on to the lead after the first pitstops, but dropped down the order after the second round of stops. In the second hour of the race, the #11 Eurointernational Ligier of Giorgio Mondini took command of the race, trailed by the #7 Duquieine Norma who started from pole and - after falling back in the start - worked its way up the order again. 

Nicholas Schatz took the lead in the fast Norma but didn't enjoy it for a long time. Schatz spun off the track and lost valuable time, dropping down the order again. Mondini took charge again of the LMP3 field with the #2 United Autosport trailing behind. The Norma would lead again in the array of pitstops, but spun again and fell out of contention, eventually losing 3 laps at the end of the race. 

After the last round of pitstops, Uboldi in the #11 Ligier was into the lead but just six seconds ahead of John Falb in the #2 United Autosport. When Uboldi was involved in a contact with 2 other cars, the door was wide open for Falb to take the lead and immediately build up a comfortable gap. The #2 Ligier now seemed on its way to their second victory of the season. A drive through penalty for abusing track limits melted down Falbs lead, but he managed to get out again with just a few seconds in the lead and get on the top spot of the podium .... until 3,5 hours later the racestewards decided differently. Behind both contenders for the top spot, the #18 M.Racing-YMR completed the podium. 

Ferrari remains unbeaten in the GTE class at the Red Bull Ring.  For the fifth consecutive year a Ferrari was on the top step of the podium after a frantic 4 hour race. Christian Ried had the best start in his #77 Proton Competition Porsche, going from third to first place in the first lap. After three laps Aaron Scott in the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari got into the lead with the #66 JMW Ferrari close behind him. It was the start of an exciting battle between the 2 Ferrari's, both leading the race several times. 

After the final round of stops, the gap between both cars was down to just a few seconds, Jody Fannin in the #66 now leading the #55 of Matt Griffin. Managing his tyres perfectly, Griffin slowly closed the gap to the leading Ferrari, to make his move in lap 131 and take the lead again. By the end of the race, the #55 of Griffin, Cameron and Scott had a gap of 17 seconds to the JMW Ferrari. 

Behind both leading cars, the #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari seemed to give Ferrari a clean sweep on the podium, but Nicki Thiim spoiled the Italian party. Thiim was charging hard in his #90 TF Sport Aston Martin in the final part of the race with some frantic door to door racing against Giorgio Roda in the #51. The Dane found a gap in the last lap of the race and speared off to the final podium spot. Roda finished 4th ahead of the #77 Proton Porsche and the #90 Beechdean Aston. All GTE cars finished in the same lap, except the #90 Beechdean Aston Martin who came in one lap behind. 

The next race in the European Le Mans Series is the 4 Hours of Le Castellet in the south of France on August 27th. 

Race Results

Text & pictures: Kristof Vermeulen.