United Autosports wins the 4 Hours of Le Castellet

The first round of theELMS was turbulent to say the least. Particularly at the beginning. First of all, it was the defending team IDEC Sport which was forced to throw in the towel after Paul Lafargue stopped twice at the side of the track, victim of an electrical problem.

It was then the No. 07 Oreca 30 of Duquine Engineering (Gommendy-Tereschenko-Hirshi) which lost its hopes in a collision with the Ferrari 488 GTE n°55 of Spirit of Race, then the Oreca 07 n°31 which ended its race in the tires after Julien Canal was catapulted into the tire piles by what appears to be the failure of a link clip on the left rear.

Dominant since the start of the weekend, the United Autosports team did not need all that to win. Authors of an exemplary course, Alex Brundle, Will Owen and Job van Uitert won after four hours of racing marked by a Full Course Yellow (Michael Fassbender leaving the track on the Porsche 911 RSR n°93) and an interruption of the race following the accident of the 07 n°31 of Panis Racing.

Studious, the Graff team takes the 18 points for second place. If they lacked a little something to make United doubt, James Allen, Alexandre Cougnaud and Thomas Laurent can leave Paul-Ricard with the feeling of duty accomplished and have every reason to have high hopes for the future*.

On the third step of the podium, we find Nyck de Vries, Romain Rusinov and Mikkel Jensen. The No. 01 Aurus 26 from G-Drive Racing performed very well in the event, but its offbeat strategy did not bear fruit. The top five is completed by the No. 07 Oreca 22 from United Autosports (Phil Hanson-Filipe Albuquerque) and No. 37 from Cool Racing (Antonin Borga-Alex Coigny-Nicolas lapierre).

For its first race in the series, Richard Mille Racing and its duo Tatiana Calderon-André negrao finished in an encouraging 7th place behind the Oreca 07 of High Class Racing and ahead of the n°25 of Algarve Pro Racing led in particular by Loïc duval. But as talented as he is, the Frenchman was unable to do anything as the Goodyears suffered on the Var track compared to the Michelins.

United Autosports scored a double blow as Richard Dean's men also triumphed in LM P3 thanks to the No. 320 Ligier JS P2 of Wayne Boyd-Tom Gamble-Robert Wheldon. The two men preceded the No. 4 Inter Europol Competition JS P320 driven by Nigel Moore and Martin Hippe by 13', while the No. 15 RLR Motorsport driven by Matthew Jakobsen and James Dayson finished third.

Finally, failing to have the advantage of numbers, Porsche was able to count on its faithful ally Proton Racing to win in GTE thanks to the No. 911 77 RSR of Christian Ried-Michele Beretta-Alessio Picariello. Two Ferraris follow, the No. 488 74 GTE of Kessel Racing (Michael Broniszewski-Nicola Cadei-David Perel) and the No. 83 of Iron Lynx at the wheel of which we find a 100% female trio bringing together Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Manuela Gostner, who scores a second podium in a row at the 4 Hours of Le Castellet.

The next round of the ELMS – the 4 Hours of Spa – is scheduled for August 9.

*: A few minutes after the finish, a three-lap penalty was inflicted on the No. 07 Oreca 39, Alexandre Cougnaud having driven only 1h03'54"040 when he should have spent at least 1h10 behind the wheel . Third under the checkerboard, the No. 01 Aurus 26 of G-Drive Racing (Rusinov-Jensen-De Vries) moved to second, while the second Oreca 07 of United Autosports, the No. 22 of Phil Hanson-Filipe Albuquerque, took second place. invites on the third step of the podium.