Spa ELMS: Team WRT takes LMP2 title with home win
Team WRT survived a scrappy start to win the fifth round of the European Le Mans Series at Spa-Francorchamps and seal the LMP2 title with one round to go.
#41 Team WRT Oreca 07 - Gibson LMP2, Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz, Yifei Ye
Eric Le Galliot
The Belgian circuit often provides chaos at the start and so it proved once again with championship contenders G-Drive Racing and United Autosports among the cars in trouble at the first corner, the former retiring after contact with Salih Yoluc's TF Sport-run car at the first corner while Phil Hanson in the United Autosport’s ORECA went a lap down after a puncture.
This was the ideal scenario for Team WRT, as Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz made up for their Le Mans heartache with a clean run to victory, their third of the season, ahead of the Duqueine and Panis efforts.
They now hold an unassailable 36-point advantage with 25 points available in next month's Portimao finale over G-Drive pair Roman Rusinov and Franco Colapinto.
Alfa Romeo Formula 1 stand-in Kubica took the start in the #41 WRT from third on the grid and immediately took second, before leapfrogging Charles Milesi's pole-sitting #37 COOL Racing ORECA when he stayed on board the car at the first pitstops.
There was another lead change in the second round of pitstops, with the #32 United Autosports ORECA that had started last - with a chassis built up around a new monocoque following Nico Jamin's heavy qualifying shunt - getting a jump on the erstwhile leading WRT.
But Yefei, now at the wheel of the #41 car, was able to pass Manuel Maldonado going into Les Combes to put his team back in the lead of the race with just over two hours to run.
From there on, the WRT crew cruised to the chequered flag, with Deletraz bringing the car home five seconds clear of Duqueine drivers Tristan Gommendy, Rene Binder and Memo Rojas.
LMP2 Pro-Am was won by the COOL squad of Milesi, Nicolas Lapierre and Alexandre Coigny, finishing fourth overall, while the #32 United crew also comprising Job van Uitert slipped to fifth overall at the finish.
#32 United Autosports Oreca 07 - Gibson LMP2, Job Van Uitert, Nicolas Jamin, Manuel Maldonado
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
In LMP3, DKR Engineering started the race from pole but the Luxembourg-flagged team lost the lead in the first corner chaos and had to battle hard to regain the lead.
Once Laurents Horr and team-mate Mathieu de Barbuat got out in front, the DKR Duqueine proved uncatchable, finishing almost a minute ahead of the nearest competition.
The team’s third victory in a row ensured it closed the gap to championship leaders COOL Racing's Nicolas Maulini, Matthew Bell and Niklas Krutten. The Swiss team was in damage limitation mode after having started 13th following a difficult qualifying on Saturday, but recovered strongly to secure second, just ahead of the lead United Autosport Ligier crewed by Wayne Boyd, Rob Wheldon and Edouard Cauhaupe in third.
AF Corse ensured the battle for the GTE title will go down to the wire at Portimao as Francois Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Alessio Rovera convincingly won their second race of the season ahead of the points-leading Iron Lynx Ferrari of Matteo Cressoni, Rino Mastronardi and Miguel Molina.
The second all-female Iron Lynx car of Rahel Frey, Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting sealed a Ferrari 1-2-3 by beating Proton Competition's Porsche driven by Hollywood actor Michael Fassbender, Felipe Fernandez Laser and factory driver Richard Lietz to the line by less than half a second.
ELMS Spa-Francorchamps 4 Hours - race results
Cla | Driver | Car | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Robert Kubica Louis Deletraz Ye Yifei |
Oreca 07 | 99 | |
2 | Tristan Gommendy Rene Binder Memo Rojas |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 5.318 |
3 | Julien Canal Will Stevens James Allen |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 19.544 |
4 | Alexandre Coigny Nicolas Lapierre Charles Milesi |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 23.198 |
5 | Job Van Uitert Nico Jamin Manuel Maldonado |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 26.236 |
6 | Paul Lafargue Paul-Loup Chatin Patrick Pilet |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 1'07.468 |
7 | John Falb Rui Andrade Gustavo Menezes |
Aurus 01 | 99 | 1'24.134 |
8 | Philip Hanson Jonathan Aberdein Tom Gamble |
Oreca 07 | 99 | 1'33.014 |
9 | Francesco Dracone Sergio Campana Markus Pommer |
Oreca 07 | 98 | 1 Lap |
10 | Matthieu Lahaye Jean Baptiste Lahaye |
Oreca 07 | 98 | 1 Lap |
11 | Laurents Hörr Mathieu de |
Duqueine M30 - D08 | 96 | 3 Laps |
12 | Nicolas Maulini Matthew Bell Niklas Krütten |
Ligier JS P320 | 96 | 3 Laps |
13 | Wayne Boyd Robert Wheldon Edouard Cauhaupe |
Ligier JS P320 | 96 | 3 Laps |
14 | Eric Trouillet Sebastien Page David Droux |
Ligier JS P320 | 95 | 4 Laps |
15 | Rob Hodes Garett Grist Charles Crews |
Ligier JS P320 | 95 | 4 Laps |
16 | Bressan Alessandro Andreas Laskaratos Damiano Fioravanti |
Ligier JS P320 | 95 | 4 Laps |
17 | Matthias Kaiser Rory Penttinen |
Ligier JS P320 | 94 | 5 Laps |
18 | Jim McGuire Duncan Tappy Andrew Bentley |
Ligier JS P320 | 94 | 5 Laps |
19 | François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Alessio Rovera |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 93 | 6 Laps |
20 | Matteo Cressoni Rino Mastronardi Miguel Molina |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 93 | 6 Laps |
21 | Nick Adcock Austin McCusker Max Koebolt |
Ligier JS P320 | 93 | 6 Laps |
22 | Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Michelle Gatting |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 93 | 6 Laps |
23 | Michael Fassbender Felipe Fernández Laser Richard Lietz |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 93 | 6 Laps |
24 | Claudio Schiavoni Giorgio Sernagiotto Paolo Ruberti |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 93 | 6 Laps |
25 | Jody Fannin Andrea Fontana Rodrigo Sales |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 92 | 7 Laps |
26 | Christian Ried Cooper MacNeil Matt Campbell |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 92 | 7 Laps |
27 | John Hartshorne Ross Gunn Ollie Hancock |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | 91 | 8 Laps |
28 | Tony Wells Colin Noble Jr. |
Ligier JS P320 | 91 | 8 Laps |
29 | Andrea Dromedari Jacopo Baratto Joey Alders |
Ligier JS P320 | 90 | 9 Laps |
Cresp Christophe Fabien Lavergne Adrien Chila |
Ligier JS P320 | 91 | 8 Laps | |
Mattia Pasini Mateusz Kaprzyk Nicolas Pino |
Ligier JS P320 | 78 | 21 Laps | |
Martin Hippe Ugo De Aidan Read |
Ligier JS P320 | 47 | 52 Laps | |
Diego Menchaca Ferdinand Habsburg Richard Bradley |
Oreca 07 | 19 | 80 Laps | |
Mike Benham Alex Kapadia Malthe Jakobsen |
Ligier JS P320 | 19 | 80 Laps | |
Duncan Cameron Matthew Griffin David Perel |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | 18 | 81 Laps | |
Salih Yoluc Charles Eastwood Harry Tincknell |
Oreca 07 | 13 | 86 Laps | |
Roman Rusinov Franco Colapinto Nyck de Vries |
Aurus 01 | 1 | 98 Laps |
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