ELMS Red Bull Ring: Saturday Notes

Jota Sport arrived at the Red Bull Ring on a high, bearing stickers that attested to their dramatic late victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours. That success still hasn’t quite sunk in for Simon Dolan, but the British driver is well aware that attentions must now turn to securing another maximum points haul towards their European Le Mans Series title challenge after winning last time out at Imola.

“Obviously for us there’s some unfinished business here from last year, we should have won but we got a pitlane penalty which threw that away,” said Dolan. “We feel good here and I think we’re quick. It’s just a question of getting back into the track, it’s one of those where you just need a few laps to remember and get back into it, and when you do it’s very rewarding, so I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be more about tyres than anything else because it’s so warm, making the right choices is going to be fairly key. But we’re all fairly calm and under control.”

(Credit: Jota Sport)

At just 16 years of age, Matt McMurry made his own little piece of history at Le Mans by breaking Ricardo Rodriguez’s half-century old record to become the youngest man ever to start the Le Mans 24 Hours, also beating Gunnar Jeanette’s youngest finisher record set in 2000. Next in his sights is a breakthrough podium in the ELMS, which he hopes will help cement fourth place in the standings.

“The first time I got in, one lap in it starts pouring,” he said. “I had all the rain, then I had sunset, the middle of the night, sun rise and the end, so I got all the cool ones! It feels good, it was just tonnes and tonnes of experience in these cars and now we’re going to do the season in the ELMS and try to be really successful there. Right now I think we’re tied for fourth in the points and I think we’ll be able to improve again, so hopefully we can finish on the podium.”

McMurry is gunning for his first podium finish at the Red Bull Ring. (Credit: ELMS Media)

Matt Griffin was last week informed of the sad news that his WEC team, RAM Racing, with whom he won the ELMS GTE title last year, has been forced to cease operations following a difficult Le Mans 24 Hours. Back once again in the European Le Mans Series, the Irishman is determined to make up the lost ground on fellow Ferrari outfit SMP after an incident for Mirko Venturi at Imola cost the Silverstone winners the chance of back-to-back wins.

“It’s gone well so far, we were P2 in free practice after quite a messy run, so we’re reasonably happy,” he said. “It’s really tough around here; the nature of the track means the times are super close, there are a lot of first gear hairpins where it’s hard to make an advantage on another driver. Where our car is potentially very strong is on the long runs, in fact it’s probably a bad thing for qualifying but a good thing for the race because we’re not seeing hardly any tyre degradation, so that could be really good for the race.  P2 is good, I’m happy to be in the mix in such a competitive field where it’s really hard even to make the top seven or eight. 

"We just need to be super consistent over the race. At Silverstone we had the fastest lap and at Imola too, so race-wise we’ve probably been the quickest, but we haven’t been super-quick in qualifying. Fifth place at Imola because of the issue we had has put us a little bit behind where we need to be in the championship and with only three rounds to go it’s hard to make that up, but we’ll be trying our best. The plan is to push flat out and try to get the deficit down and win the championship.”

Nielsen is relishing her ELMS opportunity with the IMSA Matmut team (Credit: IMSA Performance)

ELMS debutant Christina Nielsen welcomed the opportunity to return to racing in Europe with the IMSA Matmut Porsche team. The 22 year-old Dane has been based in the US this season, racing an NGT Motorsport GTD-spec Porsche in the Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 Hours alongside her commitments in the IMSA GT3 Cup. This weekend marks Nielsen's first time in an RSR, but she is certainly not unfamiliar with the brand, with whom her father Lars Erik has a long history.

“It’s great to be back racing in Europe, I only have to fly maybe one or two hours!” she joked. “I couldn’t see any reason why I wouldn’t want to do this, the guys here have a lot of experience and they speak English!  I’ve driven with Nicolas Armindo before as well, so I know him.

“I come from a Porsche family, my dad used to race Porsches for many years and I like the cars very much,” she added. “I’m definitely open to other brands, but right now we’re sticking with Porsche and I like where I am. It’s a strong brand and they compete in a lot of series so there’s a lot of doors open. I mean if someone called me and asked me if a wanted to be a factory driver then I wouldn’t say no!”  

Lyons aspires to join fellow Brits James Calado and Sam Bird in the
World Endurance Championship in the coming years. (Credit: ELMS Media)

Lastly, Michael Lyons has spoken of his desire to graduate to the World Endurance Championship with AF Corse. The 23-year-old Briton, a regular with the Italian team over the past three seasons, currently lies ninth in the GTE standings with Marco Cioci and Piergiuseppe Perazzini.

“I think everyone that’s in the European championship looks to the World Championship,” he said. “I’ve been with AF Corse for three years now, every year we’ve progressed and hopefully we can make the final step and have a run at Le Mans. I raced there this year in the Group C support race, we had a few things that meant a result was not possible, but our pace was great, it was a great experience and now I know the track. So like anyone in sportscars, that’s the dream.”