After blogging the Asian Le Mans Series back in February, yours truly has been inspired, and will now do his best to blog the 2021 European Le Mans Series for LMP2, LMP3, and GT3 cars. The lid lifter of the '21 season is the 4 Hours of Barcelona at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, and the action is coming your way, next! This is the first of half a dozen races set to be run this year. It is time for a brand new season of the European Le Mans Series to start. This season goes all the way through October before we get to the finale in October at Algarve in Portugal. 41 cars on this huge grid. The cars are in their ten minute warmup session right now. The track here at Barcelona was built in 1991, and has been the host of the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix since then, for the last 30 years.
This track is 4.6 kilometers (2.9 miles). La Caixa corner has been remodeled so it is not as sharp as it used to be. There are some other very important corners here. We join Jonny Palmer, and Graham Goodwin in the booth and Hailey Edmonds in the pit lane for the race broadcast. We have a fabulous grid even though we are in the middle of the global pandemic. 41 cars in this field. Amazing. On the pole, G-Drive Racing, with Nyck De Vries driving the #26 G-Drive Oreca 07. The Dutchman is sharing with Roman Rusinov of Russia, and Franco Colapinto of Argentina. Colapinto of course also raced earlier this year in the Asian Le Mans Series.
Nyck De Vries is a former Formula 2 champion and won that open wheel championship with ART Grand Prix. De Vries went to the top of the tree in qualifying out of nowhere as many drivers were in the reckoning. We saw great entertainment in Le Mans Cup and today's race will be no different. Another car to look out for as we prepare to race, another team, actually, is the United Autosports outfit in LMP2 and LMP3. In LMP3, they are racing two cars, #2 and #3. #2 is being shared by Wayne Boyd and Rob Wheldon from England alongside Frenchman Edouard Cauhaupe, and #3 has American Jim McGuire alongside British drivers Andrew Bentley and Duncan Tappy. All these drivers did race for United in the Asian Le Mans Series.
Andrew Bentley wants to go for his first ELMS victory. Sixteen cars make up the field in LMP3. Bentley is racing his first race at Catalunya even though he has driven the track. There have been tweaks to the speed differential between the classes in ELMS for 2021. GTE has Porsche's, Ferrari's, and a sole Aston Martin. Proton Competition with their WeatherTech sponsored Porsche 911 RSR-19 come in as one of the favorites. Before we continue, I ought to correct myself. Proton has their own car, and there is the WeatherTech backed entry as well which we've also seen in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship this year.
#77, the WeatherTech liveried Porsche is being shared by Gianmaria Bruni from Italy, Jaxon Evans from New Zealand, and Germany's Christian Ried. The second car, #93 has Irishman Michael Fassbender alongside Felipe Fernandez Laser from Germany and Austrian Porsche factory standout, Richard Lietz. Jaxon Evans is very excited and credits his co-driver Gianmaria Bruni. Evans knows he has to do his best. He has a great relationship with his team mates. They know each other from other racing experiences in sports cars and in GT cars.
Jaxon Evans has been in Porsche Carerra Cup and Porsche Supercup as well. The formation lap has started as the starting grid rolls across the television screen. We are getting ready to go, and you will hear plenty about many of the cars and their drivers as the race goes on. Bear with me, as this is yours truly's first time covering the ELMS in a serious capacity. On the overall pole, we have the #41 Team WRT Oreca 07 being shared by Switzerland's Louis Deletraz, Robert Kubica of Poland (a former Formula 1 driver), and Yifei Ye of China. We also have an innovative automobile in this race, a trio of drivers with differing physical abilities.
We will speak of their quest to race an adaptive race car, as this race goes on. It is nothing new, but it is being highlighted as technology here. Alex Zanardi, for one, has been a driver in the past who has run modified race cars. The team of drivers with disabilities, they will be focused on the opening two events of the European Le Mans Series and they are ready to race in August at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The drivers of different abilities in this automobile. It is an LMP2 car, an Oreca 07 for SRT41 La Filiere Frederic Sausset. The three drivers sharing the car are Takuma Aoki of Japan, Nigel Bailly from Belgium, and Pierre Sancinena of France.
The LMP3 field is going to be a big one and we will talk about them. The engines are firing up and we are ready to go out on the warmup lap. The cars do set off behind the Seat Cupra safety SUV. Romain Rusinov, Nyck de Vries, and Franco Colapinto are on the pole position. Colapinto was supposed to run a couple sports car races this weekend, but, he has chosen to run this particular race we are reporting on now. These guys are ready for competition especially in LMP2 as we have a brave new era in sports car racing that has started and will continue through the coming years.
17 LMP2 cars including the innovative car of Pierre Sancinena, 16 LMP3 cars, and eight GTE cars. OK. We are coming up for a start as the safety SUV moves to pit lane. These chaps are not forming up very well. But, anyway, it's red lights out and away we go! Into the lead goes ther G-Drive car while the midfeild gets bunched up. Louis Deletraz has made his escape from Romain Rusinov as we have a car spun off the road and stuffed in the barrier already! It looks like the #32 United Autosport Oreca, the second car on the team, being shared by Nico Jamin of France, Manuel Maldonado of Colombia, and Dutchman Job van Uitert.
It's dropping like a stone with Nico Jamin at the wheel of it while the sister United Autosports #22 car of Phil Hanson has made a good getaway. He is sandwiched between Henrik Hedman in the DragonSpeed car and Julien Canal aboard the #65 Panis Racing Oreca. He is joined by French LMP2 racer Gabriel Aubry and former Formula 1 driver Will Stevens from England. This team, is being run by ex F1 driver and 1996 Monaco Grand Prix winner, Olivier Panis, who scored his one and only Formula 1 win for Ligier in that motor race. Romain Rusinov is backing up the field as we see what the stewards have to say about the start.
The WRT car ran wide and Nico Jamin also has had to come back onto the track. We have a safety car on the course. Nico Jamin did not hit anything but the marshals are rescuing him from the gravel trap as we speak. Oh dear! The final chicane here at Barcelona is becoming calamity corner! Ah. The #21 DragonSpeed Oreca has spun. Henrik Hedman at the wheel of it. The Swede is sharing with England's Ben Hanley and IMSA regular, American, Ricky Taylor. So, Hedman had contact with the #34 and that's why we see an absolute pig's breakfast in the chicane right now.
The #34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca in the Pro Am section of LMP2 was also caught up in that shemozzle. Salih Yoluc of Turkey sharing with Irishman Charlie Eastwood as well as Harry Tincknell, the Englishman, who is the factory Mazda driver in the DPi class in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship, making an LMP2 cameo this weekend. Salih Yoluc was trying to step through the door and then Henrik Hedman said, "no way, sunshine!" and slammed it firmly in his face. Oh dear. My poor old foot! Ah yes. Safety car. We have another car spinning. Full Course Yellow, and meanwhile, Henrik Hedman is on his own island trying to move the DragonSpeed automobile off the sausage curbs.
#21 is stranded, straddling the sausage curb. The corner workers in their orange uniforms are recovering the cars. We are forever grateful to the men and women who wear the white or orange uniforms, depending on where they are in the world, because without the safety personnel and corner workers stationed around the circuit, there'd be no motor racing at all. We saw a huge stack up with the LMP3 field which could have very well created a carambolage of it's own. Carambolage, pig's breakfast, take your pick of terminology, it's all a mess. Phil Hanson moved around Julien Canal before all the aforementioned mayhem took place.
Henrik Hedman is motoring on. But he's a lap down now and will have to scramble to make that up as the race rolls on. We wonder now too, if Salih Yoluc clipped the IDEC Sport #17 entry. This is the first of two cars in LMP2 for this team and a Pro Am entrant. #17 being shared by Ryan Dalziel, Dwight Merriman, and Kyle Tilley, a few drivers who we've also seen stateside in IMSA in the WeatherTech Championship. The sister IDEC Sport entry may have also been in a spot of bother on the road. That's the #28 all French trio driven car of Paul-Loup Chatin, Paul Lafargue, and Patrick Pilet.
Nico Jamin may be a lap down but Henrik Hedman might be on the lead lap, but he has to work his way through LMP3 and GTE traffic. Also, two of the Iron Lynx cars have taken the lead in GTE while Christian Ried in the #77 WeatherTech Proton Competition Porsche, has fallen to third spot. Three Iron Lynx Ferrari's are in the top four including the all female team of drivers. So, for Iron Lynx, here are the lineups, to clarify.
#60, the all Italian trio of Paolo Ruberti, Claudio Schiavoni, and Giorgio Sernagiotto
#80, the trio of Miguel Molina from Spain sharing with Italian's Matteo Cressoni and Rino Mastronardi
#83, the all female trio of Rahel Frey from Switzerland, Danish driver Michelle Gatting, and Italy's Manuela Gostner.
Rino Mastronardi is in the #80 car. Paolo Ruberti is second. Third in the GTE class is the #77 Proton Porsche. That is the WeatherTech liveried car familiar to IMSA fans stateside. No need for a wave around this early in the race, but, we can use it, so the LMP3 and GT cars won't be separated all that much. Jamin and Hanson, meanwhile, they were right next to each other before the contretemps we saw earlier on. Henrik Hedman is moving up and has just uncorked fastest lap at 1:40.657. Hedman and Jamin are caboose on the field right now in this massive 41 car entry we have.
The safety car peels off and we are back to green. Only five laps on the board as Romain Rusinov leads Louis Deletraz followed by 2020 champion Phil Hanson. Hanson teamed with Filipe Albuquerque to win the ELMS title in 2020 but Albuquerque is not back this year. Julien Canal is fourth. Fifth belongs to the Pro Am leader in LMP2. That is the #37 Cool Racing Oreca 07. Switzerland's Antonin Borga at the wheel of it right now, sharing with countryman Alexandre Coigny, and team boss for Cool Racing and experienced sports car racer, Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre.
Chasing Borga at the moment is the sister G-Drive Oreca #25. Falb sharing with Brazilian Pietro Fittipaldi and American John Falb. Pietro Fittipaldi is of course the grandson of two-time Formula 1 Champion, Emerson Fittipaldi. The LMP3 scrap is hot and heavy right now as well. Rob Wheldon and United Autosport lead their rivals DKR Engineering and RLR M-Sport. DKR Engineering has the #4 Duqueine M30-D08 in the hands of Germany's Lorents Horr sharing with Dutchman Alain Berg. RLR M-Sport campaigns the #15 RLR MSport Ligier, in the hands of Dane Malthe Jakobsen sharing with British drivers Mike Benham and Alex Kapadia.
Andrew Bentley, meanwhile, has his hands full with a swarm of other LMP3 entries including the #19 car. #19 is the Cool Racing Ligier in the hands of Nicolas Maulini of France, sharing with Nicklas Krutten of Germany and England's Matt Bell. In the meantime, there's more position shuffling in LMP3. #18 moves ahead of #8. This is a pass by the 1 AIM Villorba Corse Ligier on the #8 Graff Racing Ligier. #18 has Alessandro Bressan of Italy, sharing with countryman Damiano Fiovaranti, and Greek driver Andreas Laskaratos. #8 is the first of two Graff Racing Ligier's. The French outfit has Frenchman Eric Trouillet sharing with two Swiss drivers, Sebastien Page and David Droux. Their sister car, #9 is a duo. shared by Matthias Kaiser from Lichtenstein and Rory Penttinen from Finland.
Kaiser and Penttinen may be familiar names if you followed our coverage back in February of the Asian Le Mans Series. Nico Jamin is harrying the GT cars. Rino Mastronardi leads GT as Salih Yoluc is pinged by the stewards with a drive through penalty for causing a collision as we are just over ten minutes into this race. Romain Rusinov is no stranger to starting this races and being the rabbit chased by the hounds. Rusinov won the FIA World Endurance Championship in LMP2 in 2015 and won the title in 2018 in European Le Mans Series racing, while also being crowned as Asian Le Mans Series champion in 2019-2020.
G-Drive also has a third automobile in this race. It is the #24 Oreca 07 for Algarve Pro Racing who is under their umbrella. The Portuguese team, being absorbed by the Russian team. Algarve Pro is led by British sports car racing veteran Richard Bradley sharing with Ferdinand von Habsburg of Austria and Diego Menchaca of Mexico. Meanwhile, we have a new LMP3 leader as Lorents Horr has moved by Rob Wheldon, placing the #4 DKR Engineering Duqueine ahead of the United Autosports Ligier, car #2. This is a brand new car in all black carbon fiber livery. DKR have won a lot of championships in Michelin Le Mans Cup, the steppingstone series that raced on Saturday and you've no doubt read the race report of.
Lorents Horr leads LMP3 ahead of Rob Wheldon, Mike Benham, and Nicolas Maulini. Henrik Hedman has passed all the GTE cars and now has to pass the LMP3 cars and Nico Jamin is also catching up as one of the LMP3 cars slides around. That's the MV2S car #5. The Ligier is from a French team with an all French driving crew. Adrien Chila sharing with Christophe Cresp, and Fabien Lavergne. The LMP3 cars will have three pit stops as the Nissan V8 motor is thirsty. Two of the three stops need to be in a certain time window as Rino Mastronardi is passed by Paolo Ruberti at Iron Lynx in GTE. Paolo Ruberti is sure to put daylight between himself and Senore Mastronardi. Sounds like an Italian race to me.
We see in replay, too, a move by the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE on the #93 Proton Competition Porsche. Duncan Cameron is fighting with Michael Fassbender and Michael Fassbender also is passed by Rodrigo Sales. Meantime, Romain Rusinov continues on in the lead over Louis Deletraz as there's a spin for Henrik Hedman and the #20 Team Virage Ligier in LMP3. The Polish team won the Le Mans Cup event we saw yesterday but now they are in a spot of bother, that car being shared by two Americans and a Canadian. Charles Crews, Rob Hodes, and Garrett Grist. Henrik Hedman has had a fraught race after being put in an iffy spot by Salih Yoluc.
Henrik Hedman just wants to turn around and get back in the race and he is being boxed in by the Virage LMP3 car. They both need to do a three point turn. Meanwhile, in the lead of the motor race it is mano e mano with Romain Rusinov and Louis Deletraz. Phil Hanson is getting a look in but is 1.3 second out. Julien Canal, the Le Mans, France native is fourth ahead of Cool Racing' Antonin Borga. Has Henrik Hedman called it a day? Has he retired the car for DragonSpeed? We'll follow up on that development momentarily. Rusinov runs wide and this gives a chance for Deletraz to move in. Lapped GTE cars, the TF Sport Aston Martin, moves out of the way. Now, Deletraz is looking to pounce on Rusinov. This is a game of sharks and minnows now.
Rusinov is the minnow while Deletraz is the shark. Henrik Hedman's car is out of the way as the marshals have lifted the local yellow flags that were supposed to go out in that area of the track. Where did the Team Virage LMP3 car go? Phil Hanson is moving in. Virage are back on track, but not DragonSpeed. Louis Deletraz is really pushing and Phil Hanson is closing up fast as well. Hanson is trying to gain on Deletraz. Will he be on Deletraz's six soon? Speaking of on your six, Rusinov is being thrashed by Deletraz as Deletraz wants the lead of the motor race and wants it, now!
Deletraz takes the lead and Hanson says, "I'll have a slice of that pie" and makes a move on poor old Rusinov who is getting hung out to dry here. Louis Deletraz's patience has paid off and he snookered Rusinov who is now second. Phil Hanson was so close but couldn't get in. Hanson is desperate to not let Deletraz out of his sights. Julien Canal for Panis Racing is coming as well. We are also seeing a scrap between Antonin Borga and John Falb simmering nicely, thank you, behind this current scrap for the lead of the motor race.
Cool Racing and the other G-Drive car is coming. The SRT41 invitational class LMP2 car is up to 13th ahead of four more LMP2 cars. Lorents Horr leads LMP3 for DKR Engineering ahead of Rob Wheldon and Mike Benham. Meanwhile, Christian Ried leads GTE ahead of Manuela Gostner and Duncan Cameron. Rodrigo Sales is closing in as well. Louis Deletraz's margin has ballooned to three seconds. Deletraz, the Swiss driver, from Geneva, raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2020. Deletraz has also run Formula 2 open wheel cars. Duncan Cameron moves around Christian Reid and he was also mugged by Manuela Gostner. Phil Hanson, in traffic, it is get your own back time over Romain Rusinov.
Rusinov gets snookered in traffic and here comes both Julien Canal and Antonin Borga for Panis and Cool Racing. Paolo Ruberti makes it a 1-2-3 for Ferrari and Iron Lynx as he leads both Rino Mastronardi and Manuela Gostner. Christian Ried has been monstered by the Iron Lynx Ferrari's. Hanson makes his move on Romain Rusinov. Julien Canal is now racing behind Romain Rusinov as Phil Hanson is 5.7 seconds behind Rusinov. Antonin Borga is behind Julien Canal and John Falb is also in the fight, nearly.
Lorents Horr is leading LMP3 in the Duqueine leading a whole brace of Ligier LMP3 cars as we see contact between #3 and #13 in LMP3. Andrew Bentley gets a nerf from Martin Hippe in the first of the two Inter Europol cars. To review, the #13 Inter Europol Ligier has the German, Hippe, sharing with Belgium's Ugo de Wilde and Julien Falchero of France. The sister car, #14, is being shared by Julius Adomavicius of Lithuania, and Italian's Alessandro Bracalente and Mattia Pasini. Pasini races motorcycles and has started in 125cc, 250cc, and Moto2, and he is making his car racing debut, today.
Lorents Horr is driving away. Also, the argy bargy Andrew Bentley got into in LMP3 has cost him a spot. The #11 Eurointernational Ligier has gone around him. Mateus Kaprzyk from Poland at the controls of that automobile, sharing with Andrea Domedari of Italy, and Dutchman, Joey Alders. Hippa moves by and so does Kaprzyk. Joey Alders was actually withdrawn because of a driver ranking mixup in the #11 car. So, officially, it is Mateus Kaprzyk/Andrea Domedari. Mattia Pasini runs ahead of Martin Hippe, and they are monstering Rory Pentinnen at the moment. Pentinnen runs wide and is hung out to dry. Passini is an ex Moto2 race winner and he was aspiring to get into MotoGP.
No further action for the earlier incident we saw. Pit stops coming soon. LMP3 cars will pit twice and they will pit around the hour mark. LMP2 pit stops are coming up soon, in another ten minutes or so. A battle in LMP3 between the MV2S car #5, of Adrien Chila, the Ligier, vs. the #12 Racing Experience Duqueine in the hands of Tom Cloet of Belgium. Cloet sharing with Luxembourgish drivers David and Gary Hauser. Louis Deletraz's lead has grown to 7.7 seconds and the gap between Romain Rusinov and Phil Hanson is three seconds, but Rusinov has company from Julien Canal as they try to go around Tony Wells. Wells aboard the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier he shares with Colin Noble. These two ran as a pairing in Asian Le Mans Series competition as well if you remember.
Their sister car, #6 is not in the battle, but worth mentioning. Nick Adcock from England sharing with Max Koebolt from Holland and American Austin McCusker. Antonin Borga in the meantime, is pressurizing Julien Canal as well. John Falb is in the seocnd G-Drive car of course. Mike Benham is just ahead of both Nicolas Maulini and Alessandro Bressan. Paolo Ruberti continues to lead Rino Mastronardi in the GT class but the scrap for third is heating up. Manuela Gostner is being chased by Duncan Cameron. Romain Rusinov, meanwhile, is keeping Julien Canal at bay. Canal is running short of ideas to pass.
The peak performance of the Goodyear tires is dropping a bit. Tires are at a premium for LMP2 and LMP3 but unlimited for the most part in terms of quantity allocation in the GT class. John Falb has lost some spots as well being passed by the Duqueine and the IDEC Sport car, #28. There was a wayward LMP3 car off the road. Not exactly sure who it was. Paul Lafargue is the best placed of the two IDEC Sport LMP2 cars right now over team mate Dwight Merriman. Louis Deletraz now leads Phil Hanson by 11 and 3/8ths seconds. The LMP2 cars used to be open cockpit machines. Their performance in 2021 though even with roofs on the cars, in incredible. They are as quick as the legendary diesel Audi R10 TDI roadster that raced at and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans a number of times in the mid to late 2000s.
Phil Hanson is moving away from Romain Rusinov who has drivers on his tail such as Julien Canal, Antonin Borga, Memo Rojas, and Paul Lafargue. We also watch running eighth in GTE, the #95 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR in the hands of John Hartshorne. Hartshorne sharing with fellow Brits Ollie Hancock and Ross Gunn. The gaps are pretty wide in LMP2 for the top two or three, but it is closer between third and seventh. Meanwhile, the Ferrari battle is heating up as Duncan Cameron is catching Manuela Gostner. Duncan Cameron sharing with Matt Griffin from Ireland and David Perel from South Africa. We wish their former team mate Aron Scott could be here.
Scott has put his racing career on hold, in order to look after his business which restores historic racing cars. Matt Griffin and Aron Scott drove that car for five years. In GTE you must have a Bronze, a Silver, and also, a choice of a Platinum or Gold rated driver. The quickest driver on the team is reserved for the final stint. Most of the GTE field is Ferrari's but we do have the lone Aston Martin and the two Proton/WeatherTech Porsche's as well. LMP2 pit stops are coming up soon. There's less fuel available for LMP2 cars this year and less that can fill the tank.
This change is across the board in any championship that races LMP2 cars, so, European Le Mans, World Endurance, WeatherTech Championship etc. Franco Colapinto is going to be next into the car for G-Drive. Memo Rojas moves past the #15 RLR M-Sport car. IDEC Sport also has some trouble there. Actually, there was contact in a position change between Paul Lafargue and Mike Benham. Alessandro Bressan also makes a move and John Falb is in there as well. Bressan moves to third in LMP3 ahead of Mikey Benham. 41 minutes done.
Romain Rusinov is behind Phil Hanson. Julien Canal is back there along with Antonin Borga and Memo Rojas. Rojas is a two-time European Le Mans Series champion. Dwight Merriman is next in line. Merriman is sharing with Kyle Tilley and Ryan Dalziel. Dalziel has been a longtime campaigner in IMSA and other U.S. championships. Duncan Cameron tries to make a move on Manuela Gostner. Meanwhile, Louis Deletraz leads Phil Hanson and Romain Rusinov. Deletraz has been absolutely flying. Other teams still have their quicker bullet drivers ready to go.
Keep your irons in the fire. Keep your powder dry. It's far from crunch time. The chicanes at turns 14-15 are important and turn 16 is the most important corner. Great to be back at Barcelona after the event was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. Strategy will begin coming into play with 45 minutes on the board. Going longer on fuel is going to help. We have had a safety car scramble already. Pit stop time for the #84 SRT41 innovative car. This is the automobile being driven by drivers with disabilities that was mentioned earlier. Pierre Sancinena will stay behind the wheel.
It is a standard Oreca 07. But it has hand controls for a couple of the drivers, Nigel Bailly and Takuma Aoki. Both of them have disabilities that affect their lower extremities. They have hand controls to drive the car, but, because of the disabilities they are dealing with, they cannot feel the aerodynamic grip of the car because of how their bodies are affected by their physical limitations. They are here to practice driving before going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans as the Garage 56 innovative car entry. The #24 car has also made a pit stop. This is the carbon neutral racing project under Algarve Pro, the Bradley/Habsburg/Menchaca car.
We are barely an hour into this race. Pierre Sancinena who is assisting Nigel Bailly and Takuma Aoki, he is a former champion in Alpine Cup and in GT cars. Algarve Pro is ready to bring the #25 car in and John Falb does come in for a driver change and fuel as well as tires. BHK Racing and car #35 are also in the pit lane. Their Oreca 07 is being shared by Germany's Markus Pommer alongside Italian drivers Francesco Dracone and Sergio Campana.
Markus Pommer is the new driver joining Dracone and Campana. Their pit stop is done and dusted and they are back on track as Phil Hanson hits the lane as well. Ditto for Romain Rusinov and Antonin Borga. The sister G-Drive Oreca was also in the lane and Rio Andrade unfortunately lost heaps of time. Andrade has pace as a driver, and we saw him drive in Asian Le Mans earlier in the year of course, the driver from Angola. Cool Racing are also in the pit lane. In replay, we can see Louis Deletraz bottled up behind Dwight Merriman. Now, was there contact? Not likely. But it was a very close shave.
Tony Wells is being lapped. He was also in that scrapped. Deletraz in the lane and so is Julien Canal as Phil Hanson and Romain Rusinov are back on track. Louis Deletraz could not restart the car in the pit lane. Meantime, the DragonSpeed automobile has expired from the motor race, retiring with clutch woes. Henrik Hedman tried to come back into the race after colliding with Salih Yoluc, and then, he hit the Virage LMP3 car, and that automobile is back on track, Rob Hodes at the wheel of it. For a moment, until they make their pit stop, a new LMP2 leader. This is the Pro Am entry #29, the Ultimate Oreca in the hands of Frenchman Francois Heriau, leading an all French effort with co-drivers and countrymen Jean-Baptiste Lahaye and Matthieu Lahaye, who could be brothers or father and son.
There is another incident being investigated by the stewards involving the #30 Duqueine Team Oreca. Memo Rojas finished his stint, with the Mexican handing over to Austrian Rene Binder. Binder and Rojas sharing the driving chores with another French driver, and a familiar name. Tristan Gommendy. There was another car in that fracas, the #28 IDEC Sport car, the Chatin/Lafargue/Pilet automobile. That incident happened about ten minutes ago. In the meantime, Phil Hanson is chasing down Louis Deletraz. No, wait. It's the #34 of Salih Yoluc, being monstered by Phil Hanson. Yoluc is being lapped by Hanson.
Yoluc has to move out of the way and it is harder t do through the chicane as Julien Canal and Romain Rusinov are right in it. Now, there's more action as Paolo Ruberti leading GTE tips one of the LMP2 cars into a spin in that very tight final chicane. The marshals are not going to appreciate that one I don't think. Romain Rusinov is looking to challenge Julien Canal. Phil Hanson, meanwhile, will be fuming because Salih Yoluc is not being courteous and moving out of the way. We see another spin in that final chicane and it is the #12 Racing Experience LMP3 car. That's the Hauser/Hauser/Cloet entry that we saw in a spot of bother earlier on in the race.
Poor old Tom Cloet put himself on the whirligig there, but stays out of the barrier. Thank goodness. Cloet is sharing the car with David and Gary Hauser, who clearly are brothers. Thank you for the clarification on that one, Mr. Jonny Palmer. Rusinov in the meantime, is not just battling Canal, but is also battling the traffic. Rusinov cannot move past the Intereuropol machine of Martin Hippe and realized that move was not on. He seemed to have no power and now moves around the dayglow yellow car, which actually has ex Moto2 motorcycle racer Mattia Pasini at the controls. I should not say ex motorcycle racer. Pasini is only now making his first foray into racing cars, in this very race. We touched on that earlier.
Whoops. Timing screens have changed and it is not Roman Rusinov in the #26, but rather, Franco Colapinto, the Argentinian. Colapinto probably has fresh Goodyear tires and they are just coming into their operating window as he is closing in on Julien Canal. Colapinto was caught in the clag on the outside of the circuit even though he had his foot planted into the accelerator, booking it to stay ahead. Meantime, the whirligig remains active as the #28 car rotates, look. Frenchman Paul Lafargue at the controls, and he had the windscreen wiper peel away from the glass. He arrived in turn one backwards, and thankfully there was no one in his path.
Now we pick back up with the Franco Colapinto and Julien Canal story. How do we call this one? Colapinto sweeps 'round Canal, can't find the grip, and he's fishtailing, folks. Now, can he keep that car on the road? He does make it. He passes Canal, and Salih Yoluc to put a lap on the Turkish driver. Bish, bash, bosh, Colapinto is bang on the money so far. Colapinto was supposed to be in an entirely different race yesterday, but he must be glad he stuck around and is now racing here at Barcelona. He is a fearless young driver, 17 years old. He has a bright future.
We watch Jean-Baptiste Lahaye work his way around Barcelona in tenth spot in class in LMP2. He is at the wheel of the Ultimate Oreca at the moment. The team being Ultimate, the car being an Oreca 07. This is tenth in class, and he is past Francesco Dracone in the #35 BHK Oreca. Louis Deletraz leads over Phil Hanson. Team WRT capitalized on the pit stop time and this is what has moved them into the lead of the motor race with 33 laps now on the board, 95 miles. Deletraz has over half a minute of a lead on Phil Hanson. The closer margin we need to watch is this 4.4 second gap from Hanson to Franco Colapinto.
How will Colapinto close the gap up in traffic? That's the question. Laurents Horr is your leader in the LMP3 division for DKR Engineering sharing the #4 DKR Engineering Duqueine with Dutchman Alain Berg. Pit lane is open for LMP3 cars. We see that they are on a certain strategy as #6 is in, the first of the Nielsen Racing Ligier's, the Nick Adcock, Max Koebolt, Austin McCusker machine. The gold paint on the car reflects the tenth anniversary of Nielsen Racing, 14th in class, 32nd overall. This is the sister car to Tony Wells and Colin Noble in the #7 car. Koebelt has won in a Chevrolet Camaro in the GT4 European Series.
Austin McCusker won the 2019 IMSA Prototype Challenge championship. We also watch the second Proton Competition Porsche in the GTE class, that is the Porsche 911 RSR-19 with Michael Fassbender at the wheel of it. The #7 Nielsen Racing LMP3 car is in the lane and this car, with Tony Wells still at the keyboard has some significant damage on the left front corner as the left front fender has a hole punched into it right next to the tire. This is a legacy of something that happened at the start of the motor race. No further action from what we saw at the race start.
Right now as we look at the order here is how things stand after 37 laps are done and dusted.
1. #41 Team WRT
2. #22 United Autosports
3. #26 G-Drive Racing
4. #65 Panis Racing
5. #37 Cool Racing
6. #30 Duqueine Team
7. #24 Algarve Pro Racing
8. #25 G-Drive Racing
9. #29 Ultimate
10. #35 BHK Motorsport
We are looking at the full field. Laurents Horr leads LMP3 over Rory Pentinnen and Andrew Bentley. In GTE, Paolo Ruberti leads in one of the Iron Lynx Ferrari's over the sister Iron Lynx entry for Rino Mastronardi (#60 leading #80), and up to third, another Ferrari, the Duncan Cameron driven #55 Spirit of Race car from Switzerland. Meanwhile, another incident at the final chicane. Deary me. What's this? IDEC and JMW have both rotated. That's Ryan Dalziel aboard the #17 IDEC Sport Oreca and the Ferrari is the aforementioned JMW machine, car #66 being shared by American Rodrigo Sales, Englishman Jody Fannin, and Andrea Fontana of Italy.
Rodrigo Sales currently at the wheel of #66. The #15 RLR M Sport entry in LMP3 meanwhile, gets pinged for speeding in the pit lane. Laurents Horr is back on track and so is Rory Penttinen. Horr is back in the race while Andrew Bentley is also in the lane. Up to second, since he chose not to pit is Adrien Chila at the wheel of the #5 MV2S Ligier JS P320. Chila should be in the lead but he cannot get there. Rob Wheldon also has the #2 United Autosport entry in the pit lane. You have missed nothing at the sharp end. Yes, you've guessed it. Louis Deletraz continues to lead the motor race overall and in LMP2.
31 seconds is the gap between Louis Deletraz and Phil Hanson while Franco Colapinto remains third. Hanson has the experience compared to Colapinto. No further action for the incident between Ryan Dalziel and Rodrigo Sales. Sales is not at fault and both cars have been delayed but will keep racing. Manuela Gostner meanwhile, brings the #83 Iron Lynx Ferrari to pit lane. She was running third in GTE but has been demoted to sixth place. Christian Ried is at the controls of the #77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19, the WeatherTech sponsored machine. Christian Ried will hand over to Jaxon Evans soon, and then Gianmaria Bruni will have his turn at the wheel.
In 2021, the European Le Mans Series is celebrating it's tenth anniversary. Happy tenth birthday, European Le Mans Series! Tom Cloet has the #12 Racing Experience Duqueine LMP3 car in the garage. That car has had troubles today, a litany of issues. Ryan Dalziel moves around Salih Yoluc for LMP2 and poor old Yoluc has spun the car on the course someplace. He spins at turn ten and the pack scatters. That was a brush from the #30 Duqueine and also the Turkish driver being slightly overeager to make the corner.
Rene Binder wanted the spot but didn't get an indication from Salih Yoluc before Yoluc closed the door. Now, the #77 Proton Competition WeatherTech Porsche is in the lane. Christian Ried out of the car and it seems like Jaxon Evans will be in the car. No surprise that this latest fracas between Yoluc and Binder is being examined by the stewards under a magnifying glass. The lead gaps in each class are fairly substantial. Louis Deletraz leads overall and in LMP2 by 33 seconds over Phil Hanson. Lorents Horr is leading Nicolas Maulini in LMP3 by 42 seconds. Iron Lynx leads GT3, and is in the pit lane. They lead by a minute or so and are in the lane, for fuel, tires, and a dirver change.
Now, Paolo Ruberti has done an hourlong stint so he will hand the car to Claudio Schiavoni. Teams hope for a Full Course Yellow if there is an incident instead of a safety car with two hours and 45 minutes left on the board. Team WRT, DKR, and Iron Lynx, the class leaders, are all hoping for smooth sailing from here on out. No yellows and no safety cars. But that is easier said than done, sometimes. The sister #93 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 is back on track with Austrian Richard Lietz now driving.
Michael Fassbender now wants to be a good racing driver and he is getting better. Word is there is an electrical problem that has cropped up on the #2 United Autosports Ligier in LMP3. A brief local yellow at corner nine. Now, what has caused this? The #6 Nielsen Racing LMP3 car has a spin. It appears this car came into contact with G-Drive Racing and Franco Colapinto. That's the #26 car. What an odd deal. Salih Yoluc has the #34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca in the garage, the car he shares with Charlie Eastwood and Harry Tincknell. No further action for the fracas between that car and the #30 Duqueine. It was an error for Salih Yoluc and Rene Binder was not at fault, not affected.
Racing Team Turkey are having a fraught race thus far. Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender is now in his second year of racing in the European Le Mans Series, and he has handed the car over for the next stint to Richard Lietz. Felipe Fernandez Laser is the third driver in that car. The Porsche flat six motor which has been punched out slightly to 4.2 liters is the only non V8 motor in the field and of course their competitors from Aston Martin are running a 4 liter normally aspirated V8 derived from and developed by Mercedes Benz. Drive through penalty for car #15 for speeding in the pit lane. That is the RLR M-Sport car.
Mike Benham was running up the field, and they are sixth now but will drop like a stone after the drive through. Rio Andrade moves past Diego Menchaca for seventh spot. The team manager for the pole sitting G-Drive car has been summoned to Race Control after their turn nine incident. This was the coming together with Nick Adcock aboard the #6 Nielsen Racing Ligier. Edoardo Freitas and company at Race Control want to hear the #26 team's side of the story. There are two Aurus cars, and that automobile is third, and was leading when Roman Rusinov was driving.
Some slight contact, look, between the RLR M Sport LMP3 car and the JMW Motorsport Ferrari. Rodrigo Sales is fourth just ahead of Duncan Cameron who is ahead of Manuela Gostner who has also been passed by Gianmaria Bruni in the #77 Porsche. Louis Deletraz still leads the motor race overall and must be decisive in dealing with lapped traffic. Deletraz is working on the final car on the lead lap, another LMP2 car and it is Jean Baptiste Lahaye in the #29 car, the Ultimate entered Oreca. Ryan Dalziel moves ahead of the #77 Porsche. Dalziel is in the #17 IDEC Sport car. He moves past the #37 Cool Racing car.
Lorents Horr is the 2020 Michelin Le Mans Cup champion. The Duqueine cars used to be badged as Norma's. Ryan Dalziel has gone past the #39 Graff Racing Oreca. The car is being shared by an all French driving squad for a French team, Arnold Robin driving with Maxime Robin and Vincent Capillaire. Ryan Dalziel is fourth in Pro Am and into the top ten in LMP2. Pro Am is lead by Anthony Borga followed by Rui Andrade for G-Drive Racing. Meanwhile, the action is hot and heavy in GT and the move is being made as we speak! Porsche vs. Ferrari and Gianmaria Bruni does indeed make the move on Rodrigo Sales.
Another pit stop for SRT41. They will introduce one of the two physically challenged drivers on the team into this race, and we shall see how they progress. It will either be Nigel Bailly or Takuma Aoki. Race Director Edoardo Freitas is on the radio with an announcement. "Information to the pit lane. Drive through penalty for car #26 for not respecting race start procedures and causing collisions further back on the grid as a consequence." Whoa! This is big! Well, well, well. Roman Rusinov was slow at the start and he is judged to be at fault for causing the calamity behind.
Franco Colapinto will have to serve the penalty and does so as we speak. This penalty is not for the earlier incident we saw, but, they could have further penalties in the future as this motor race continues. Now that is going to set the cat among the pigeons indeed. Nick Adcock was driving the #6 Nielsen Racing LMP3 car at the time of the incident. It could be a double penalty. Two different drivers, but the same penalty, because the penalty is counted against the car and team, not the driver. #39 s in the lane. Antonin Borga has moved to fourth and the #39 car s in the pit lane. The SRT41 team are in the garage as well.
The plan is for the team to do their pit stops in the garage area with Nigel Bailly getting into the car and maybe this is an easier way for Nigel Bailly and Takuma Aoki to do their driver changes. More team personnel are required for the driver changes, to help Takuma Aoki and Nigel Bailly into the car and with whatever adaptive mobility devices they may use outside of the race car. Roman Rusinov says his penalty was not justified because at the start of the race, as he was trying to get his tires and brakes up to temperature, the safety car was running slower than he expected. Romain Rusinov took the pace from the safety car.
Team WRT meanwhile have only used one driver in their rotation. Louis Deletraz has been in the car since the start of the race and we have not seen Robert Kubica or Yifei Ye at the wheel yet. Yifei Ye might do the middle stint as the Silver driver and Robert Kubica at the end as the Platinum grade driver. Kubica of course is a former Formula 1 driver. Now, we can see heavy damage to car #5 and wonder where on earth that came from. This is the MV2S Racing entry with the all French driver's strength. Adrien Chila sharing with Christophe Cresp and Fabien Lavergne.
Cresp is at the wheel of it and there's damage with a wrinkled, tattered left rear fender. The so-called cheese wedge, is damaged. One of the other LMP3 cars may also have a busted bullet. Fender, cheese wedge, bullet. Again, take your pick on the name. The #8 Graff Racing Ligier of Sebastien Page may have run into the back of Christophe Cresp driven automobile. Monsieur Cresp will have to drive sensibly so he doesn't puncture a tire. Meanwhile, we join the third place battle between Julien Canal and Antoine Borga.
The #37 car is in contention and Antonin Borga has been the only driver in the car so far as Nicolas Lapierre and Alexandre Coigny are still to come. Andreas Laskaratos makes a move on one of the two LMP3 United Autosports cars. Not sure that is for position. No, it isn't. Some walking wounded cars in LMP3. MV2S has now come to the pit lane, with Christophe Cresp. Ah. Julien Canal made contact with Christophe Cresp. Turn 14 here at Barcelona is a single line corner. The cheese wedge has been pushed right into the wheel arch. As part of the championship rules, you must run with both bullets in place, and with functioning taillights of course.
Julien Canal gets a black and white warning flag from the stewards. Black and white flag as well for the #26 G-Drive Aurus after making contact with the #6 LMP3 car. Franco Colapinto running fifth, not making any kind of inroads on the cars ahead, as he runs ahead of the #30 Duqueine Team Oreca. That car is currently in the hands of the Austrian, Rene Binder. Yifei Ye is now at the wheel of the #41 WRT LMP2 entry. Ye is managed by the father of Neel Jani. Julien Canal continues to lead this motor race and he has run a very good stint so far. Canal is in the lane now for Panis Racing. Yifei Ye and Team WRT will pit. In the meantime, Sebastien Page out brakes himself and is off the road.
He is skittering across the gravel. Again, one of the bullets is busted from scrabbling through the gravel. Julien Canal pits handing the lead to Yifei Ye running ahead of Tom Gamble. Nico Jamin, driving the #32 United Autosports car, he says that the start to the race was a hard one and the warmup lap is really slow with low tire pressure. He admits he made a mistake making a run on cold tires through turn two before spinning out. Iron Lynx continues to lead in GTE over the Proton Competition car. Ferrari, Ferrari, Porsche in GTE.
Nico Jamin is in his fourth season in European Le Mans Series racing, and he has now run with three different teams. The #24 APR LMP2 car passes the Iron Lynx automobile. Yifei Ye leads Tom Gamble by nearly 16 seconds. The WRT team put new tires on the car and the United Autosports team refueled. Rino Mastronardi leads GTE in the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari, over Claudio Schiavoni. The #77 Proton Competition WeatherTech liveried Porsche is third and currently has Gianmaria Bruni at the wheel of it. He is really scrapping with Claudio Schiavoni, and a touch there! A touch between Bruni and Schiavoni. The Porsche's nose is damaged.
Schiavoni was forced wide and the two of them played dodge 'em cars. Bruni is a Platinum rated driver. What will the marshals say? Bruni has moved past Schiavoni. Part of the Ferrari's diffuser has been embedded into the front of the Porsche. There's a chunk wedged into the nose of the Porsche. So, some dodge 'em cars there. The team will be looking at the telemetry for sure. Gianmaria Bruni will be put under investigation and he has taken the blame. The #28 IDEC Sport car of Paul-Loup Chatin makes a pit stop. This is a regular pit stop and Paul-Loup Chatin, a former European Le Mans Series champion, has regular pit service.
Cool Racing and the #37 Oreca of Alexandre Coigny now lead the Pro Am section of the LMP2 class. Jean Baptiste Lahaye and Rui Andrade run second and third in class. Louis Deletraz says he had a very good first stint. Yifei Ye, from China, shares this car for WRT with Robert Kubica. He also won a championship in French Formula 4 open wheel racing. Ye leads with Tom Gamble in second spot. He is the LMP3 2020 champion for United Autosport in ELMS. Whoops! The TF Sport Aston Martin goes for some agricultural racing and plows through the gravel trap. This is the #95 John Hartshorne, Ross Gunn, Ollie Hancock driven car.
Ollie Hancock shows off his rallycross technique. Lorents Horr leads LMP3 for DKR Engineering and he and co-driver Alain Berg have had things all their own way in the class thus far. Mattia Pasini is running well for Intereuropol. Pit stop time for the leading Ferrari in GTE. Gianmaria Bruni continues on his way as we watch in replay the argy bargy between the Porsche and the Ferrari, and the Porsche did collect a strake from the rear diffuser of the Ferrari. Is the Ferrari deconstructing? Maybe he pushed a special button. Don't touch that... button! It's the... origami button!
A significant chunk of the diffuser is in there. The G-Drive Aurus runs wide a wee bit. This is the sister car, the #25 of Rui Andrade. Maybe he found marbles on the outside of the circuit. Marbles of course being tire rubbish. Tire clag as it were. Rui Andrade is pressurizing Alexandre Coigny. Ryan Dalziel runs fourth in the second of the LMP2 classes while in the lead is Jean Baptiste Lahaye. Nigel Bailly is currently driving the #84 car. There is an LED strip between the legality panels. This allows people to see an LMP2 car but the pace is less because of the two drivers with physical disabilities, they cannot feel the aero grip.
We have Rene Binder being chased by Franco Clapinto and Colapinto makes the pass at turn 12, knowing the grip is there. Colapinto absolutely dusts Rene Binder and now, the #37 car of Alexandre Coigny has spun in turn ten battling with Rui Andrade. Monsieur Coigny turned in when he probably shouldn't have. Again, Jean Baptiste Lahaye leads Rui Andrade in LMP2 Am. The contact between #25 and #37 is now being investigated by the stewards. We are halfway home. Two hours down and two hours to go.
Yifei Ye leads the motor race by half a minute over Tom Gamble, Will Stevens, Rene Binder, and Jean Baptiste Lahaye. Lorents Horr leads LMP3 by over a minute and a half over Mattia Pasini. In GTE, Gianmaria Bruni leads Matteo Cressoni and Richard Lietz. 72 laps complete. 207 miles. Sports car racing has some amazing sounds and you can definitely tell the difference between the high pitched wail of the Gibson Technologies 4.2 liter V8 and the low rumble of the 5.6 liter Nissan V8, the spec motors used in LMP2 and LMP3 respectively. Graff and RLR M Sport are battling in LMP3. Meanwhile, the #19 Cool Racing LMP3 car is in the pit lane for service.
This is the car being shared by Nicolas Maulini of France, Niklas Krutten of Germany, and Matt Bell from England. New tires go onto the car. Alain Berg, is from Luxembourg. He is not the same person as the ex Formula 1 driver Alan Berg, from Canada. Ah. Some tire smoke in turns four and five which might be back up to speed. Meantime, the #34 car of Harry Tincknell in the Racing Team Turkey car. Tincknell is a ways down. He is of course, a Mazda driver in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. Oh dear. Matt Griffin, the Irishman in the Ferrari, is trundling into the pit lane with a flat left rear tire, look.
Was that from contact? Maybe. The Goodyear Eagle tires are durable. But this one is flat. LMP2, LMP3, and GTE are all on their own spec tires. LMP2 and GTE run Goodyear tires while LMP3 cars run Michelin tires. Andrea Fontana for JMW Motorsport negotiates the never ending right hand turn of turn three here at Barcelona and brake into turn four as the #4 DKR Engineering car is into the lane and Alain Berg will step into the car and take it to the finish. A new driver for the #3 United Autosports car. It seems like it will be Duncan Tappy replacing Jim McGuire. Andrew Bentley started the race. So, Duncan Tappy will get in for part of the remaining time.
A good battle for third in LMP3, look. It is the blue car of Niklas Kruetten, the German for Cool Racing in the #19 vs. the highlighter yellow, the dayglow chartreuse machine for Inter Europol, car #14, currently in the hands of Julius Adomavicius, the driver from Lithuania. An awkward moment for the JMW Ferrari trying to move passed the Nielsen Racing LMP3 car, but not sure whether it was the #6 or #7 car. Matteo Cressoni is applying the blowtorch to Gianmaria Bruni, going for the GTE lead! Cressoni makes the move and poor old Bruni gets hung out to dry there.
Bruni turned into turn 12 but skated from one side of the road to the other, washing out into the corner. For the lead, Bruni turns in and looks like he's clear. He catches the curb, and the drifts out wide allowing the #60 Ferrari and Claudio Schiavoni to go whistling past. Check that. It was the #80 sister car. Matteo Cressoni is driving the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari. Cressoni was taking the Franco Colapinto line! Hardy har har. Bruni's tires could be busted up. Matteo Cressoni has made two pit stops and Gianmaria Bruni has only made one. Bruni is now trying to lap Andrea Fontana. Bruni is losing time to Cressoni.
Bruni somehow or other cannot apply the power of that 4.2 liter flat six Porsche and get through the corner cleanly. Bruni says "I have had enough of this!" and ducks for the pit lane. "I've had enough of this! I'm coming in!" It's possible that he has a slow puncture and he was probably on the radio asking what to do. They will do a driver change and the car needs fuel. So, will it be Jaxon Evans or Christian Ried getting into that car? This is a scheduled stop, though. There's quote a bit of tire pick up, clag, on the left front. A complete new set of boots goes on that car. Four tires.
An hour and 45 minutes now left on the board. Proton Competition has cost quite a bit of time. Richard Lietz is in the sister Proton Competition Porsche, car #93. Christian Ried is now fourth just ahead of Andrea Fontana in the JMW Ferrari. Alain Berg now leads by a minute and 20 seconds over Niklas Kruten. Kruten is second in LMP3 a minute and 20 seconds behind. Julius Adamovicius and Andreas Laskaratos are catching up however. Adamovicius, again, from Lithuania, and Laskaratos from Greece. The Greek driver is aboard the #18 1 AIM Villorba Corse Ligier sharing with Italian's Alessandro Bressan and Damiano Fioravanti.
DKR, Cool, Intereuropol, and Villorba Corse. Those are the top four in LMP3. #14 leads the sister #13 car for Intereuropol. That's the Martin Hippe, Ugo de Wilde, Julien Falchero entry. A German sharing with a Belgian, and a Frenchman. Julien Falchero raced a one off event in Michelin Le Mans Cup at Paul Ricard in the south of France. Falchero did some races in LMP2 in G-Drive equipment a number of years ago, racing a one off with Team Virage at Le Mans, (no, Paul Ricard), for Virage, in Le Mans Cup. Now, Yifei Ye leads by a minute over Will Stevens. Tom Gamble is next followed by Franco Colapinto who lost time in the drive through penalty he had.
Next up is Rene Binder followed by Jean Baptiste Lahaye, leading the Pro Am LMP2 section. News from the #77 Porsche team, Gianmaria Bruni was reporting a vibration. No air was escaping from that Goodyear Eagle tire. We'll have to look and see where Christian Ried's lap times are, with just an hour and 40 minutes to go in the motor race. Jaxon Evans will be the next driver to run in the Proton Competition Porsche. Richard Bradley brings the #24 Algarve Pro Racing car as the tire technicians check temperatures.
Bradley, the British driver, sharing with Mexican Diego Menchaca and Ferdinand von Habsburg from Austria. Matt Griffin is hounding Richard Lietz to try and get a lap back. Lietz of course sharing the second #93 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 with Felipe Fernandez Laser and Michael Fassbender. Lietz and Griffin are also being harried by Andreas Laskaratos who will have more speed in the LMP2 car. Not too much difference in lap times betwen the top GT drivers and the midfield LMP3 drivers, the Btonze rated drivers. Meantime, Ultimate moves ahead of Duqueine. Jean Baptiste Lahaye moves around Rene Binder. Manuel Maldonado is also moving up.
Maldonado is pursuing hotly, Richard Bradley. Manuel Maldonado is former Formula 1 driver and race winner Pastor Maldonado's cousin. Pastor Maldonado was the last driver to win a race for the Williams team. Pastor Maldonado is also a veteran of sports car racing. Manuel Maldonado is also a rapid driver. Now, Porsche #93 just got mugged by the 1 AIM Villorba Corse car and has a flat left rear tire! Oh dear! Michael Fassbender will get into the car. Fassbender is an actor in addition to being a racing driver, following in the footsteps of James Garner, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Patrick Dempsey, Gene Hackman and others.
Somehow, actors seem to fit right into sports car racing for an inexplicable reason. Gianmaria Bruni explains he did have a vibration on the left rear tire and is wondering about rear left damage. Bruni apologizes to Claudio Schiavoni for the contact, but in fairness, Schiavoni didn't give Bruni any room. Christian Ried is in the car now and of course Jaxon Evans will finish the motor race. Tom Gamble runs third in LMP2 for United Autosport in the #22 Oreca he shares with fellow Brit and LMP2 2020 champion Phil Hanson, and with Jonathan Aberdein from South Africa, a former driver in the DTM when they were still a touring car championship, changing to GT3 regs this year.
A quick stall for the delayed #32 United Autosports car on it's latest pit stop. This is the car that Nico Jamin had off the road at the very start of the race, sharing with Manuel Maldonado and Job van Uitert. Meanwhile, the #29 Ultimate LMP car is running fourth in class currently in the hands of Matthieu Lahaye, having taken over from his brother Jean-Baptiste Lahaye. Gianmaria Bruni pointed out a vibration he felt in the Porsche which may have come from contact with the Iron Lynx Ferrari. That was a case of a more experienced Platinum rated factory driver against a Bronze driver, a far less experienced gentleman driver.
At the time, Bruni of course stated he did not know who was in the Ferrari. The team should've communicated with him. If one car goes into the other, it is usually the fault of the car that runs into another car. So, we now watch Jean Baptiste Lahaye once again, and another driver we are looking for is British pilot Alex Kapadia who is sharing the #15 RLR M-Sport LMP3 car with countryman and co-driver Mike Benham and Dane Malthe Jakobsen. Jakobsen of course was a standout performer in the Asian Le Mans Series for this same team earlier this year back in February.
Jean Baptiste Lahaye meanwhile has been doing most of the driving for Ultimate and we have not seen Matthieu Lahaye in that car while we have seen the third driver, Francois Heriau, who is actually the first driver on the list for that team. Pit stop time now for a couple of the LMP2 teams including the leading #41 Team WRT car leading the motor race. Yifei Ye has put in a very solid stint, leading with an hour and a half to go, and now has 87 laps, 250 miles, in the books. Louis Deletraz is a second generation driver in sports cars, following in the footsteps of his father, Jean Denis. Yifei Ye rejoins the race just ahead of the #26 G-Drive Oreca in the hands of Nyck de Vries.
de Vries and G-Drive are the closest competitors for WRT at this stage. Nyck de Vries is trying to unlap himself from the WRT car. The difference between the two cars is one pit stop and that's it. It's close at the front. Meanwhile, we are looking now at the battle for the lead in GTE. Matteo Cressoni leads Christian Ried and Christian Ried, he has his hands full with the second Iron Lynx Ferrari. Check that. Proton Porsche leads Iron Lynx Ferrari. Nope. Nope. Check it again, lads. Iron Lynx Ferrari leads Proton Porsche and Proton Porsche. 81 laps on the board for Iron Lynx.
If you are going to change the game, now is the time, with less than an hour and a half to go. Panis Racing car #65 in the pit lane. Lots more to unfold yet. But we are in the window. Alain Berg leads LMP3 for DKR Engineering. Laurents Horr says he had a good stint. The team is doing a great job and the car is running well, plus the traffic is easier to negotiate. Alain Berg needs to be consistent and stay out of trouble. The gap to Alain Berg is closing. Niklas Kreuten is coming and fast. Tom Gamble is chasing Nyck De Vries as well, and this is a battle for fourth spot. There was a very long pit stop for Alain Berg and DKR Engineering. Berg was a minute and a half ahead before the pit stop and still had time in hand afterwards.
One more stop to come in LMP3 for the top teams and teams still have the joker pit stop for fuel and tires. That's for sure. Yifei Ye leads Will Stevens by 56 seconds as we have a yellow flag at turn ten. A gaggle of LMP2 cars are headed for that corner and the issue cleared up immediately. Oh dear! Dodge 'em cars time again as Ferrari #66 tags Porsche #93 and sends Michael Fassbender spinning! That was an ambitious move and he got caught out by an LMP car of some kind. Andrea Fontana is driving the #66 Ferrari and Fontana was moving in on Fassbender for position. There could be damage for the yellow Ferrari as the stewards investigate. Yifei Ye, meanwhile, is continuing to lead the motor race under a minute ahead of Will Stevens, Nyck de Vries, and Tom Gamble.
#22 is not in the race they wanted to have on this Sunday. Jonathan Aberdein at the wheel of it I believe as Tom Gamble is running very well in LMP2. He is pressurizing, applying the blowtorch to Nyck de Vries. Yifei Ye is being caught by both of them. Ye is leading and these two chaps are a lap down and want to get back on the same lap with Ye, trailing him by 1:40. Pit stop time for another one of the LMP2 cars, and now, Nyck de Vries is being monstered by Tom Gamble and Gamble goes by De Vries because the Dutchman's tires are surely knackered and secondhand at this point.
Gamble moves by a lapped Ferrari and he jinks his way past the WRT car of Yifei Ye, taking a stab at getting his lap back nd he does so. Splendid motor racing, and he is getting away from Yifei Ye to get back on the lead lap. The first overtake on Nyck de Vries was masterful and poor old Nyck de Vries had to drive defensive and couldn't get on the proper racing line. Whereas, Tom Gamble surely had the preferred line into the corner. The #84 SRT41 car for the driver's with disabilities is pitting. Nigel Bailly out, and Takuma Aoki will get into the car.
Of course, they are doing the driver change in the garage to accommodate for Aoki and Bailly utilizing their wheelchairs for mobility. This is a big step forward, seeing athletes with disabilities (or different abilities), being included in motor racing. Meanwhile, impressive GTE racing as well, look, between two Ferrari's for JMW and for Matt Griffin as Fontana goes around the Irishman. Spirit of Race overtakes JMW Motorsport. One other thing that has to be done for the driver's with disabilities, Nigel Bailly and Takuma Aoki, they need help to have their feet located on the floor of the car. The crewman will then help them with their seatbelts as well.
This effort is all a part of the La Filiere, Frederic Sausset initiative. Fred himself, has raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as we can see a mechanic assisting with moving Takuma Aoki's wheelchair to a safe spot in the garage. Fredric Sausset has finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Monsieur Sausset has a more involved disability than the two drivers we are seeing on his team. He lost the extremities of all four of his limbs, becoming an amputee and quadriplegic after contracting a viral infection. But, he is determined to help drivers with physical disabilities pursue their dreams of going racing should they have the desire and the strength and stamina to do so.
People like Freddie Sausset and his two young drivers, as well as Alex Zanardi, have been inspiring examples of people with special needs who can get into motor racing and succeed at a certain level. Freddie Sausset raced an open cockpit Morgan LMP2 car at Le Mans a few years ago and on the driver changes, the team rigged up a device to help him get in and out of the car where he grabbed onto a bar that was suspended by a winch or cable or something, whereby he wrapped his arms or hands around it and then, was lifted from the car, back into his wheelchair. Amazing stuff.
Fred Sausset also had a safety system, whereby, if he had an emergency in the car and needed to bail out, he used a lift system (not an ejector seat, but at least a lift of some kind), to get him out of it safely if he had a wreck or an emergency with a blown motor or something, and fortunately, I don't recall he ever had to use his emergency escape system in the car. Just incredible technology. Fred is at the forefront of making adaptive changes to race cars. Quite an undertaking.
Pit stop time now, for the #35 car, one we have seen before in this race here at Barcelona. Exiting the lane is the BHK Motorsport car. That's the Campana/Dracone/Pommer car. Robert Kubica is now in the #41 Team WRT and the Polish driver has run in several types of racing including Formula 1, rallying, and endurance sports car racing. He will be in a full-season entry and be at the 24 Hours of Le Mans too. Alain Berg is still leading LMP3 over Niklas Kruten in LMP3. Car #4 is in the lead, but has lost a lot of time. He still has to deal with traffic with an hour and 15 minutes on the board yet.
Yltimate will still need another fuel stop to get home. Drive through penalty for abusing track limits for the Iron Dames for Iron Lynx Racing. That is the #83 Iron Lynx Ferrari with Manuela Gostner, Rahel Frey, and Michelle Gatting, and Rahel Frey is at the wheel right now. Another point about the specially adapted car is that the nose panel is removed on the pit stop so the driver's legs can be located on the floor before the car is buttoned up and ready to race again. The aim is to get mileage so they can enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They will be entered at Paul Ricard in France I believe as well. In LMP3 Graff moves ahead of 1 AIM Villorba Corsa.
That is not a positional change as Graff have been on the back foot all day. However, now we see a scrap which is for position between car #13 and car #18. So, it is the first of the bright yellow Intereuropol Ligier's, the Martin Hippe/Ugo de Wilde/Julien Falchero car, battling the #18 1 AIM Villorba Corsa car of Alessandro Bressan, Damiano Fioravanti, and Andreas Laskaratos. Julien Falchero wants to move up. Alessandro Bressan drove this car earlier. Damiano Fioravanti has not driven yet. Right now, Andreas Laskaratos is in the car and hot on his heels is the #15 RLR MSport car with Alex Kapadia at the controls.
RLR M Sport won the Michelin Le Mans Cup race yesterday. We are two laps away from completing 100 laps in this race. WRT still leads Panis Racing. So, it is Robert Kubica vs. Will Stevens, a couple of ex Formula 1 drivers. Yifei Ye is still in the picture as well. Pietro Fittipaldi has the #25 G-Drive Oreca in seventh spot. This is the car he is sharing with Rui Andrade and John Falb, so, the Angolan, the American, and the Brazilian, are teamed up there.
The fastest car on track is the #28 IDEC Sport automobile currently in the hands of Patrick Pilet, the Frenchman, who is an ex-Porsche factory driver, and who debuted in LMP2 last year. He did so at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last September. He was filling in for Dwight Merriman after his accident as LMP3 class leader Alain Berg shimmies and goes well off the road! Yikes! Thank goodness he has rejoined the speedway safely but he is losing ever more time to Niklas Kruten. This is getting spicy indeed. The GT class leader is pitting. Pilet finished very well at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and he has been tabbed to drive for IDEC Sport for the full season in ELMS.
Now, pit stop time for the GTE class leader, the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE. Fuel and a driver change at least. Matteo Cressoni finishes his stint and Miguel Molina, the native Spaniard, he is racing in his home event. He is from Barcelona, right in his own backyard. The #80 Ferrari will be on warp speed. Meantime, the #77 WeatherTech liveried Proton Competition Porsche is still being driven by Christian Ried, but he will hand over to the rapid New Zealander, Jaxon Evans. Meanwhile, we watch a three car scrap in LMP3 for the fourth position in class. 1 AIM Villorba Corse, vs. Inter Europol (two words, not one long team name), and RLR MSport. Down pit lane, comes the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari and it seems like Claudio Schiavoni will get out, and this may be the end of his driving time.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we still have the LMP3 battle to check in on, look. Kapadia comes from a long way back and absolutely drives around Falchero like the man was standing still! If you have to go for an overtake at turn 14, go for it and Kapadia now has his sights on the next car up the road. Cool Racing brings their LMP2 machine to the lane for service and a driver change. Alexandre Coigny has completed his stint in car #37 and Nicolas Lapierre takes over. So, the Frenchman stepping in for the Swiss driver. 2/3rds of that driver's strength is Swiss with Coigny and Antonin Borga.
Kyle Tilley also brings in the #17 IDEC Sport entry which of course is backed by Era Motorsports who have raced in IMSA in the WeatherTech Championship and in Asian Le Mans Series. Matt Griffin also brings the #55 Ferrari into the lane for Spirit of Race. David Perel is into the car for the final stint. He drove for Kessel Racing last year and is now in the Spirit of Race team, the Swiss arm of AF Corse, the legendary Italian team known for racing Ferrari GT cars in Europe in the recent past and Perel is a driver hailing from South Africa.
Nigel Bailly is running well and feels confident about driving. The Belgian driver says it was difficult to drive at first but he began getting into a rhythm. He is very happy to be here in the race. Bailly says Barcelona is the first race and they are prepping for Le Mans in August for the 24 hours, and their second event will be in France at Paul Ricard. So, they are skipping the race in Austria at the Red Bull Ring on May 16th which is the next round. Bailly hopes to get better at getting into a rhythm. He says that the driver changes (as they have to be done to accommodate for the drivers), is what is taking up so much time for them.
The most important thing is to finish the race. So, the goal for the team will be to keep chiseling time away from their driver swaps as best they possibly can, even though they have a routine to get either Nigel or Takuma into the race car to go out and do their thing. The point of the project is to finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Patrick Pilet forces his way around the #24 car, albeit cleanly. Nigel Bailly was injured as a teenager after falling off of a motocross bike. Whoa! #22 puts the squeeze play on #24 with Richard Bradley at the wheel of it.
Will Stevens is just chiseling away at Yifei Ye in the lead and Tom Gamble is chasing down Will Stevens just the same. Nick Kreuten is closing up on Alain Berg in LMP3. 24 seconds is the gap. Miguel Molina is indeed quick, racing the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari and Patrick Pilet has just put a move on Richard Bradley who is dealing with tires that are fading. Pietro Fittipaldi is driving the #25 G-Drive Racing car. Fittipaldi is entered in Pro Am as the driver ranking. Just over an hour to go. Close followers of endurance racing will be tracking stint times for sure. Several drivers are running quicker than assumed. Ncolas Lapierre is being monstered by Yifei Ye, but Ye is really allowing the 13th place car to go for it.
Ye would be wasting time if he raced that lapped automobile and his pit crew at WRT is surely saying, "don't do anything foolish. Keep the car on the road." He will also be told that he should just focus on target lap times. With that said, Robert Kubica is suited and booted and ready to rumble for the final stint which is fast approaching in this motor race. They will also be mapping the fuel mileage. The LMP2 cars can run 50 minutes on a tank of petrol, but a safety car spell would be beneficial for fuel mileage.
Michael Fassbender is out of the #93 Porsche and Felipe Fernandez Laser gets into the #93 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 while the Iron Lynx Iron Dames are also in the pit lane and Rahel Frey takes over car #83. Rahel Frey will finish out the race for the team. There was an extra mechanic in the pit lane last year to assist with buckling the seatbelts on the driver change, in 2020. This year, that rule is abandoned and the driver either does up their own safety belts or the driver who just completed their stint, helps out with the belts.
The evenings here in Barcelona this weekend before the race, was for driver change practice. Uh oh. Richard Bradley is stranded on the front straightaway with no fire in the belly of the #24 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca. This could be a potentially dangerous situation, and ah, there's the yellow flag. Phew! There's good news. Bradley has restarted the car and will drive away. So, this was a brief local yellow at best. That car is not on the pace and Richard Bradley is a quick driver. In replay, we can see some contact made, some argy bargy between the #29 and #14 cars in LMP2. That's Ultimate in LMP2 and Inter Europol in LMP3 coming together.
Matthieu Lahaye and Julius Adomavicius were the drivers of those respective automobiles. The LMP3 cars have started pitting for the final time to get home on one more tank of fuel. Also in the lane, Porsche #77 in GTE. Will Richard Bradley pit? Will he continue? He probably will. Christian Ried is done for the day with his driving stints, and wow. He was into the #17 car, side by side casual contact it appears. Some right side damage on the Porsche with a scratched number panel. Jaxon Evans takes over the car with exactly an hour to go.
Christian Ried remains the only ever present and active driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship, competing in every single FIA WEC race since the series' inception in 2012. He's done a lot of ELMS races as well. The series began in 2004. Car #24 is in the lane and we also watch Yifei Ye in the lead in the #41 WRT car. WRT are thinking of making a pit stop soon to get Robert Kubica in the car. Troubles and a major spot of bother at G-Drive. There's a loose wheel in the lane as the mechanic on the #26 is trying to change the left rear. The #25 is exiting from the second pit stall for the team, behind the #26, and... whack. He hits the tire.
The mechanic reaches back for the wheel. "I can't find the wheel!" Well, sunshine, your sister car just hit it. Bonk. Bon nuit. The wheel, is going. Going across the pit lane, look. Yes, it looks comedic, but could be a very serious danger in the lane itself. This is motor racing lads, not a Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello comedy sketch. There was a race at Spa and in the heritage pits, Pescarolo and Courage, and a wheel came across the heritage pit lane at Spa Francorchamps. The driver had no time to react. Do I hit the crewman or do I hit the wall? No choice. Crunch! Hit the wall, and your race car goes from pristine and competitive, to a worthless pile of junk, in mere seconds.
It's very difficult to simulate outside of a session two cars for the same team coming in on the same lap. You have to wheel one car on the team backwards to make room for the other car, and have a sufficient turning circle to do so. One G-Drive car had the turning circle, but the wheel was totally in the way. The chartreuse colored #14 Inter Europol LMP3 car is in the lane for service. It is heaved to the inside of the pit box so it isn't out too far and into the actual pit lane. What went wrong? How did it go wrong? How will it never happen again?
The #26 car will have to take a drive through penalty for that misplaced wheel. The #5 MV2S LMP3 car is also being investigated for something. Three hours in the bag and now, less than one left before this motor race is done and dusted. Yifei Ye leads this race by 40 seconds and they are running as close to 45 minutes to go. Robert Kubica will have a very short afternoon and a very short stint after Louis Deletreaz and Yifei Ye have been doing the bulk of the driving. Tom Gamble runs third ahead of Nyck de Vries and in Pro Am, Matthieu Lahaye and Ultimate, lead LMP2 Pro Am. They get points in both the overall LMP2 division and in Pro Am.
A little contact, between the #29 and #26 cars. Hmmm. Ultimate moves by G-Drive as Matthieu Lahaye gets barged by Nyck de Vries. 37 seconds is the gap between Will Stevens and the United Autosport #22 car. Car #65 will have it's last pit stop and final driver change soon. This is the Panis Racing Oreca and Frenchman Gabriel Aubry will be in the seat. Aubry is a last minute replacement for Australian driver James Allen who is ill. We hope you are feeling better for the next races, James. Stay well, mate. Allen had a wonderful race at Le Mans last fall. It is a tricky time with this global virus pandemic.
Nyck de Vries was also trying to pass a Ferrari when he had a clatter with Matthieu Lahaye. Wondering if he knew Matty Lahaye was even there. WRT leads Panis and United. 112 laps completed, 321 miles. Alain Berg leads LMP3 for DKR Engineering followed by Matt Bell and Cool Racing, and then Malthe Jakobsen. The #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Miguel Molina leads the #77 Proton Competition Porsche with Jaxon Evans at the wheel of it, and third, the Spirit of Race #55 Ferrari in the hands of David Perel. DKR have not made their third stop yet and we are looking at the #39 LMP2 Pro Am car, in the pit lane.
That is the Oreca for the Robin brothers and Graff Racing. Arnold and Maxime Robin sharing with Vincent Capillaire. Alain Berg leads LMP3. Malthe Jakobsen and Damiano Fioravanti are next and then comes Ugo de Wilde. Robert Kubica will step into the race leading #41 WRT Oreca still in the lead of the motor race, pitting with just 46 minutes to go. There may be an extra lap needed depending on the clock. A mechanic is helping out with tires and the driver change and one other person will clean the windscreen.
Will Stevens is replaced by Gabriel Aubry in the second place #65 Panis Racing car. Also in is United Autosports #22. Jonathan Aberdein will finish the race in that car. DKR Engineering pits from the LMP3 lead. The gap was 94 seconds as we watch for Matt Bell who will take the lead in class. Kubica and Aubry are back in the race. Tom Gamble still in the lane as Nyck de Vries pits from fifth and Matthieu Lahaye stays on track to take third as United Autosports have Tom Gamble on pit lane with Jonathan Aberdein set to take over. DKR LMP3 car #4 in the lead with Alain Berg, and Matt Bell remains second but he has not hit the start/finish line yet. Nyck de Vries pits for new Goodyear tires and fuel.
Jonathan Aberdein is on track now. The #25 #Visit Angola G-Drive LMP2 Am car is in the lane. Matt Bell is still on the road and has just crossed the start/finish line. Work continues on the G-Drive #25 and the car stalls briefly. Michelle Gatting says that tire management is a huge deal. Everyone is struggling with their tires in GTE and she made a silly mistake causing a drive through penalty. The Danish racer, she says the pace is good as Rahel Frey is driving at the moment. Iron Lynx have been very close to winning but they've had a number of podiums the last two years in ELMS. Meantime, Felipe Fernandez Laser is in the #93 Proton Competition Porsche. He is chasing a Ferrari as there's a four car battle in GTE.
Jody Fannin leads the quartet followed by Giorgio Sernagiotto, Rahel Frey, and Felipe Fernandez Laser. Felipe Laser is chasing Jody Fannin. Giorgio Sernagiotto is actually Michelle Gatting's husband believe it or not. Robert Kubica is running 32 seconds clear of Gabriel Aubry. Matthieu Lahaye is third now and needs to pit. Jonathan Aberdein is fourth. In LMP3, the gap is 28 seconds as Alain Berg takes a quick pit stop over Matt Bell. Matt is screaming around Catalunya right now. Malthe Jakobsen is next followed by Damiano Fioravanti and then Hugo de Wilde right on Fioravanti's six.
Ultimate pits and Matthieu Lahaye stayed out for a while more. Lahaye leads Pro Am in LMP2 over G-Drive. Pietro Fittipaldi is in the #25 car. Fittipaldi has made four pit stops. Lahaye has lost two spots to both Jonathan Aberdein and Patrick Pilet. Will he fall into the clutches of Pietro Fittipaldi? #83 runs wide. Maybe that was deliberate. Ah. It's a positional scrum for third. Patrick Pilet moves around Jonathan Aberdein. Pilet was indeed ahead. Yes. This is true. Patrick Pilet is really motoring now. So many really good drivers in this field. Alain Berg leads LMP3 by 15 seconds over Matt Bell. Keep your head in the game and retain as much as possible with 35 minutes to go.
Ugo de Wilde is really up there along with Damiano Fioravanti. Felipe Laser and Rahel Frey are scrapping with Jody Fannin and Giorgio Sernagiotto is coming, fast. This will be a four car queue before long as Patrick Pilet has shaken off Patrick Pilet who is in traffic. Matthieu Lahaye is back in the race after Ultimate has pitted for a final time. Also in the fight in GT is the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari as the race leader moves by all of this. Rahel Frey is sixth and Giorgio Sernagiotto is right there as they close up on Jody Fannin. Sernagiotto is led by Frey, ahead of them is Felipe Laser and then Jody Fannin as they get bottled up behind a slower LMP3 machine which is bounding over the sausage curbs as the leader now is in the pit lane for the final time, presumably.
Check that. In the lane is IDEC Sport. But the leader of LMP3 is the one that caught the sausage curbs. That was Alan Berg. He is ten seconds ahead of Matt Bell. Rahel Frey dives inside of Felipe Laser. What's Felipe Fernandez Laser going to do? Laser is driving a very wide Porsche to hold off the advances of both Iron Lynx Ferrari's. Final stop for IDEC Sport. Aberdein has moved back into podium contention. The action is hot and heavy in the last half hour here. To the inside, and Rahel Frey moves around Felipe Fernandez Laser. Bish, bash, bosh. That move is done and dusted. Frey will now go after Fannin. She went straight up the inside and is whistling off into the distance to catch Fannin.
Felipe Laser drove in NLS/VLN for Glickenhaus. There's some damage on that dayglow chartreuse Inter Europol LMP3 car right in front of the battling GTE cars. That's the #14 machine with Italy's Alessandro Bracalente at the controls. Felipe Laser has Giorgio Sernagiotto all over him and Rahel Frey is right behind Jody Fannin now as well. Fifth in the overall sees a scrum between Nyck de Vries and Tristan Gommendy. Meantime, Frey is going to try pulling ahead of Fannin. Up the inside, she moves to fourth in GTE. The #83 being driven by Rahel Frey, is looking absolutely mega! Rahel Frey has made up a lot of ground.
Meanwhile, Nyck de Vries is reeling in Tristan Gommendy. It's Duqueine vs. G-Drive. De Vries squeezes his way past the Team Virage LMP3 car, the #20 car for the Polish team being shared by two Americans and a Canadian, with Charles Crews, Rob Hodes, and Garrett Grist. Both LMP2's get through as Nyck de Vries is trying his best to go after Tristan Gommendy for fifth spot. Meanwhile, Gabriel Aubry is catching Robert Kubica hand over fist. The gap is at four seconds. Insofar as fuel and tires, WRT went very long. Charles Crews is in the Virage LMP3 car.
Tristan Gommendy and Nyck de Vries are reeling in Matthieu Lahaye. Lahaye and de Vries are 11 seconds apart and here comes de Vries! He wants to make his move on Tristan Gommendy and make it, now. Back down the order, Jonathan Aberdein is flogging his United Autosports car around the track uncorking fastest lap after fastest lap. Job van Uitert in the other United Autosports machine is doing likewise. In LMP3 we can see a battle brewing between Daviano Fioravanti, fending off the challenge from Ugo de Wilde. Vincent Capillaire is in an LMP2 machine, moving around the P3 battle.
Miguel Molina remains top of the shop in GT looking peerless at this stage with 26 minutes to go. Paul Lafargue is back at the wheel of the IDEC Sport #28 machine. The 1 AIM Villorba Corse car is really pushing. Matthieu Lahaye is Nyck de Vries' next target. Jody Fannin meanwhile is being closed in on by Giorgio Sernagiotto. The #4 Duqueine and the #19 Cool Racing car, are nearly glued together. Malthe Jakobsen is 16 seconds behind Matt Bell but coming in a hurry. Malthe Jakobsen from Denmark is very quick and is only 17 years old. Ugo de Wilde is still pushing as well and so is Damiano Fioravanti. Now, Matt Bell has moved by for the LMP3 lead!
Wow. Alain Berg has been passed. Malthe Jakobsen, too, will catch Alain Berg. He was within a second. This race is not over yet. The gap to Jakobsen is 12 seconds or so. Alain Berg is running a lot slower than his rivals. Matt Bell is five seconds behind though. Meanwhile, Robert Kubica continues to lead. 129 laps in the books, 368 miles. Kubica has clear track and has 25 seconds in hand over Gabriel Aubry. Jody Fannin continues to fend off Rahel Frey. David Perel is ahead. Felipe Laser has dropped back. Strangely, the Porsche's pace has fallen off a cliff with 20 minutes left. It is harder for a driver to be assigned the last stint in an endurance event to bring the car home.
Ross Gunn in the Aston Martin is down in eighth. Felipe Fernandez Laser will have a major headache on his hands if Giorgio Sernagiotto does get to him. Sernagiotto is working on Fannin, trying to get by. He needs to be in touch closer. Nico Lapierre pits for a splash of fuel, third in Pro Am in LMP2 and Kyle Tilley is over a minute behind. Fannin goes over the line and Sernagiotto is still in touch. Fabien Lavergne is running well in LMP3. Lavergne, was the GTE European Le Mans Series champion with Luzich Racing a number of years back.
Nose to tail between Ultimate and G-Drive for fourth spot. They are nose to tail right now. Damian Fioravanti moves over as Alain Berg and Malthe Jakobsen battle for position. Matt Bell has moved around as well. #15 ahead of #4 in the final sector. Matthieu Lahaye and Nyck de Vries are still a car length apart. De Vries wants to move around Lahaye around turn 12. No dice. Lahaye slams the door in de Vries face, and there wouldn't have been room in that corner for him to make a full pass without going off int the tooley's someplace. de Vries seems to be in a wee bit better shape than Lahaye. Nyck de Vries moves by and Lahaye decides discretion is the better part of valor.
Nyck de Vries is picking up the pace. Berg is still leading Fioravanti. Ugo de Wilde is still back there as well for LMP3. He still has a shot. At least for the final podium place. Black and white flag for Giorgio Sernagiotto. Third and final warning for track limits from the stewards as he chases Jody Fannin and Rahel Frey has been able to leap ahead of Fannin as well. Miguel Molina, though, is your clear leader in the GTE class. David Perel is closing rapidly on Jaxon Evans. So, it is Porsche vs. Ferrari and New Zealander vs. South African in GT for the second spot. David Perel has a slight edge on the Kiwi.
Fioravanti, the Italian, still can't shake Ugo de Wilde, the young Belgian driver. This is for fourth in LMP3 as Matt Bell still leads Malthe Jakobsen. Austin McCusker for Nielsen Racing is next but they've had some woes here in Spain. Matt Bell is chasing the LMP2 cars including the #17 IDEC Sport machine in the hands of Kyle Tilley. Cool Racing will grab a Pro Am LMP2 podium. Nicolas Maulini says that consistent stints are important. He hopes to win in class. Matt Bell is finishing this race and don't forget 18 year old rookie, Nicklas Kreutten as well, from Germany. Alain Berg is falling into the clutches of Damiano Fioravanti and Ugo de Wilde.
Jaxon Evans has gotten the message about David Perel catching him and he is moving ahead to avoid feeling the heat. Miguel Molina in the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE has run 125 laps, 356 and a quarter miles. Miguel Molina is leading the class with Jaxon Evans and David Perel in tow. Under ten minutes to go. This has been a very exciting race and yours truly has enjoyed his first ELMS event. Malthe Jakobsen is closing up on Matt Bell and so, we wonder, what does Matt Bell have left in the locker as we get closer to the checkers?
Miguel Molina does lead by a decent margin despite the leader lights not working on that automobile with two lit up when there should be just one. Yellow flags at turn four. What is going on? Maybe the #12 is slow. Nope. The #5 MV2S LMP3 car has crawled to a halt but that isn't in turn four. That's turn seven. Fabien Lavergne is off the road in an unsafe place. Fabien Lavergne has stopped. That's not a place where corner workers will be safe. This is being covered, the incident, by double waved yellow flags. Withdraw them even if the car is stopped. Robert Kubica is on his way to a win.
Team WRT are running their first full season in ELMS and in the World Endurance Championship coming up in a couple weeks. It would be the first win in Le Mans Series competition for a Belgian team. Racing Engineering was the first Spanish team in the series a few years back and they too, won their first race they ever entered. That was at Paul Ricard, but never won again. Now, when we mention that, we won't put the kibosh on WRT with Vincent Vosse and Thierry Tassin. A number of the teams are pulling triple duty with this race, the GT World Challenge Europe opener at Monza (which you will hear about soon), and the NLS opener at the Nurburgring which no doubt, you've seen video footage of by now.
Car #18 has Ugo de Wilde right on his six. Damian Fioravanti is really being pressed hard. The MV2S car will just stay where it is. Just about four minutes to go. Hugo de Wilde is flying. Nyck de Vries gets back on the lead lap but is still chasing Jonathan Aberdein. Matt Bell has driven superbly for Cool Racing but only leads Malthe Jakobsen by 3.7 seconds in LMP3. The gap is coming down. Ugo de Wilde is still ahead of Damiano Fioravanti. Less than two minutes to go now. One lap left. Robert Kubica is right behind Kyle Tilley. He could overtake him but he can cruise because he's 25 seconds ahead of Gabriel Aubry with Jonathan Aberdein who will finish third and be on the final step of the podium.
Jakobsen will try passing Bell. Now, Ugo de Wilde is going to be under investigation by the marshals, perhaps. We shall see. Final lap. Team WRT turn up for their first race in LMP2 and win at the first time of asking with Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz, and Yifei Ye! Wow! Matt Bell wins LMP2 and the Lahaye family win the Pro Am section. Ugo de Wilde moves by Damiano Fioravanti. In GTE, Miguel Molina and Iron Lynx are going to win while the #66 Ferrari is slow. But Matteo Cressoni, Miguel Molina, and Rino Mastronardi.
Poor old Jody Fannin has a punctured tire on the JMW #66 Ferrari. Completing the GTE podium, Jaxon Evans in the #77 Proton Competition WeatherTech Porsche 911 RSR-19 and David Perel in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari. So, your winners of the opening European Le Mans Series race of 2021 are:
Overall/LMP2: #41 Deletraz/Kubica/Ye Team WRT Oreca 07
LMP3: #19 Maulini/Bell/Kruten Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan
GTE: #80 Cressoni/Mastronardi/Molina Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo
That's all for round one of 2021 in the European Le Mans Series. Excited to bring you the other races later in the year. Next stop on the championship trail is in less than a month for the 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. See you there. Adios, for now, from Spain.
