ELMS – Dragonspeed finally wins

After dominating practice and qualifying for the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Dragonspeed took its first victory of the season in ELMS with the Oreca 05 Nicolas lapierre, Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman.

After taking advantage of the last of the three safety car interventions, Nicolas Lapierre managed to take the advantage over Laurens Vanthoor (teammate of Dries Vanthoor and Will Stevens) lacking pace in his Team WRT Ligier JS P2 in the last part of the race to win with more than two minutes ahead of the Belgian team which makes a brilliant debut in LMP2.

The race was interrupted by the exit of Andrea Pizzitola in the Algarve Pro Racing Ligier JS P2 battling for third place with Mathias Beche five minutes from the checkered flag. The cars crossed the finish line under “Full course yellow”.

Thiriet by TDS Racing was one of the teams that saw their strategy disrupted following the last outing of the safety car. Mathias Beche nevertheless managed to return to third place with the Oreca 05 and now has a good lead with his teammate Pierre Thiriet (Ryo Hirakawa having missed the 4 Hours of Paul-Ricard) to win the title in the final at Estoril (Portugal) played on October 23.

The Ligier JS P2 of Greaves Motorsport of Berthon-Canal-Rojas finished at the foot of the podium ahead of the Gibson 015S of G-Drive Racing of Dolan-Ticknell-Van der Garde which fought for victory before also seeing its strategy be changed. undermined by the safety car. The trio finds themselves 23 points behind Pierre Thiriet and Mathias Beche before the final.

Enzo Guibbert, Paul Petit and Éric Trouillet took their second consecutive victory in LMP3, preceding the Ligier JS P3s of United Autosports. Second place for Alex Brundle, Christian England and Mike Guasch was enough to secure them the category title.

JMW Motorsport wins for the third time in a row in GTE with the Ferrari of Robert Smith, Rory Butcher and Andrea Bertolini on course to win the category at the end of the season.

Results of the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps

Discover the report of the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in issue 2082 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.