ELMS – Thiriet by TDS Racing imperial

The Oreca 05 of Thiriet by TDS Racing driven by Thiriet-Beche-Hirakawa was untouchable at the 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring (Austria). The No. 46 of the French team quickly gained the advantage over its rivals and found itself out of reach of the competition.

While the Panis Barthez Compétition had high hopes of shining with the Ligier JS P2 starting from pole, Timothé Buret made a mistake in the first hour and received a drive through for being poorly placed at the start. The No. 23 only took seventh place.

G-Drive Racing was among the contenders for victory, but the Gibson 015S of Van der Garde-Tincknell-Dolan lost contact with the race lead following a slow puncture. The LMP2 managed by Jota Sport only took third place behind the Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 05 of Gommendy-De Bruijn-Junjin due to contact at the end of the event with the Pegasus Racing Morgan driven by Rémy Striebig who left. head to tail.

SMP Racing finished at the foot of the podium with the BR01 of Coletti-Leal-Wirth which could have claimed a place on the podium without a contact forcing Stefano Coletti to stop at the end of the event. Algarve Pro Racing completes the top five with the Ligier JS P2 of Munemann-Pizzitola-Hirschi despite two penalties. The Ligier JS P2 from Greaves Motorsport of Berthon-Rojas-Canal took sixth place.

In LMP3, it was to be Duqueine Engineering which was to win with the No. 19 of Lunardi-Hallyday-Droux ahead of the No. 2 of United Autosports driven by Brundle-Guasch-England and the No. 6 of 360 Racing entrusted to Kaiser-Woodward-Swift. But the French team lost its victory following a penalty inflicted on the No. 19 of Hallyday-Lunardi-Droux. The LMP3 which was to be victorious was penalized by four seconds for non-compliance with the obligatory minimum time in the pits, which gave the victory of the category to the number 2 of United Autosports driven by Brundle-Guasch-England, undefeated since the start of the season. The French team only retains its second place in LMP3 by a second ahead of the No. 6 360 Racing entrusted to Woodward-Kaiser-Swift.

The JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Butcher-Smith-Bertolini retained the GTE class lead for most of the race, despite a spin by Robert Smith. The podium is monopolized by the cars of Maranello avec les F458 n°51 d’AF Corse (Perazzini-Cioci-Aguas) et n°56 d’AT Racing (Pier Guidi-Talkanitsa-Talkanitsa) complètent le podium après avoir profité des soucis rencontrés par Proton Competition sur ses deux Porsche.

Find the full report of the 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring in ELMS, produced by our special correspondent in Austria, in issue 2072 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.