ELMS Red Bull Ring: Signatech Deny Jota Back To Back Wins

Signatech Alpine became the third different winners in as many races at the Red Bull Ring to seize the championship lead and deny Jota Sport a perfect post-script to their Le Mans 24 Hour victory. After Nelson Panciatici had surged from fifth to third during the opening phase of the race, Paul-Loup Chatin’s stellar treble stint put the defending ELMS champions firmly into the mix, allowing Oliver Webb to capitalise on a slow final pitstop for Jota and pass Simon Dolan for a lead he would never lose.

“We gained a load of time in the pitstops which made my life a lot easier,” a triumphant Webb said afterwards. “We were both on similar strategies with the tyres, so I knew that if I pushed hard it would be a good fight and luckily we managed to get the lead and pull a decent gap.”

Defending champions Signatech Alpine took their first win of 
the 2014 season at the Red Bull Ring. (Credit: Eric Fabre)

In the early phases of the race it looked like Jota’s to lose. High on confidence after Le Mans, Harry Tincknell pumped in two laps good enough for pole on Sunday morning and Filipe Albuquerque comfortably lead away from Michel Frey at the start, despite a safety car to recover Timur Sardarov’s stranded BMW that wiped out his early advantage.

But as Frey’s challenge faded – the decision to double stint the soft tyres they qualified on backfiring heavily – the Signatech Alpine rose to the fore with the relentless Chatin at the helm, eventually overtaking Dolan and managing to hold off Tincknell for a number of laps, before the Brit managed to find a way past at turn three. But given the short time remaining, Tincknell could only build up a small buffer before handing back to Dolan, much of which was eradicated by a delay in the pits. 

With Dolan in his sights, Webb pounced, taking the lead with a decisive move on the inside at turn two. Dolan attempted to fight back immediately on the run down to three, but ran wide and brushed the rear of the Alpine, breaking a front diveplane, which left Webb to cruise home unchallenged.

“The problem was it didn’t come off, it just sat up and was dragging. That cost us a second a lap,” Dolan reported. “It’s infuriating because you know it’s going to fall off at some stage and it fell off with two laps to go, which was a bit too late. I think it would have been a lot closer had that not happened, but I think probably in the end the result was fair. All credit to Paul for doing three in a row; that was hard out there today.”

“It was just a question of strategy, we know we cannot win every time so we can be happy with a second place and we have no doubts that we will be strong until the end of the championship,” Albuquerque added.

Race Performance eventually came home third, with Franck Mailleux bagging the fastest lap on lap 126 to cap a solid weekend’s work, while Mark Shulzhutskiy and Luciano Bacheta kept out of trouble to finish fourth on the latter’s prototype debut for Greaves. 

Race Performance completed the podium despite a tyre gamble
 that failed to pay dividends. (Credit: ELMS Media)

Behind them, fifth represented scant reward for a weekend that promised much for Morand Racing on Christian Klien’s home turf. After Pierre Ragues ran out of fuel entering the pits, Gary Hirsch was tasked with making up for lost time and pulled an excellent move on Dolan to get back on the lead lap, only to be hit with multiple penalties for pitlane speeding and white-line violations which meant Klien was too far back to trouble the podium places, although he did give the Austrian crowd something to cheer about with a late pass on Tom Kimber-Smith.

"We’re here to race, my job was to fight. I pushed and now that’s it, we have to analyse and look forward,” said a despondent Hirsch, who was on for a podium despite the early delays. “Considering the car was on the medium tyres for two stints we were still strong. It’s very disappointing, there’s nothing more to say.”

In GTE, AF Corse’s Matt Griffin, Michele Rugolo and Duncan Cameron headed Matteo Cressoni and Thomas Kemenater in a Ferrari 1-2-3, despite starting down in 12^th after a fuel miscalculation in qualifying. 

The first two hours were dominated by Dan Brown in the Gulf Racing UK Aston Martin’s most competitive showing of the season so far. Starting third after a brilliant qualifying effort by Stuart Hall, Brown made short work of the pole-sitting SMP Ferrari of Sergey Zlobin and set about building a healthy advantage over the chasing pack, headed first by JMW’s Daniel McKenzie and then consequently by Kessel Racing’s Cressoni as the Brit began to struggle with his brakes in the searing heat. 

Brown shone in the early stages of the race in the Gulf Racing Aston. (Credit: ELMS Media) 

However, Roald Goethe was unable to continue Brown’s good work and gradually slipped back down the order, leaving Kemenater out in front but with a charging Griffin hot on his heels after a good first stint from Cameron.

Soon enough, the Irishman drew alongside Kemenater into turn one, used the exit kerb to avoid making contact and completed the move around the outside of two before scampering off into the distance. The move was investigated by the stewards but thankfully no further action was taken. Kessel tried one last roll of the dice by electing not to change tyres at the final stop, but Rugolo easily had enough in hand to regain the lead and pull out a 30 second gap by the finish.

“If I had got a penalty, I think it would have been really wrong,” said a relieved Griffin, who now leads the championship. “[Kemenater] was defending the inside, so I braked late around the outside. I ran wide to give him space, then lifted so he got another run on me and I had to pass him again into turn two, which was a cleaner pass.

“We knew we were really quick in a race run, qualifying didn’t go that well, but we set fastest lap again so that shows just how strong we were. It was just a case of getting past that car and getting my head down. It was really hot out there today; my race boots melted to the pedals on the car, as did Michele’s.”

After George Richardson kept JMW in the mix in the middle stint, it was left to team returnee Rob Bell to bring the car home in third under constant pressure from Pierre Kaffer.

Bell resisted late pressure from Kaffer to seal third for JMW. (Credit: ELMS Media)

“There’s not many times you feel sick watching a race but my heart was definitely in my mouth there!” admitted McKenzie afterwards. “I was concerned, that was probably one of the hardest races I’ve had to watch. We were running a little bit low on fuel, so Rob had to do a bit of conserving to make sure he had some left for the end.

“It’s a brilliant result, we came in with high hopes from Imola and I think we’ve now moved up to third in the championship as a result, which is great. Looking back on today I definitely won’t be disappointed with third. It was really quite warm in the car, the first stint felt like forever but we just kept plugging away.”

Beset by gearbox problems, Andrea Bertolini could only recover to sixth – he admitted later he was lucky to finish at all – while Hall brought the Aston Martin home an encouraging seventh in a performance that did not go unnoticed by their rivals.

“Dan Brown and McKenzie in the JMW car did an awesome job to do a double stint in that heat, they’re definitely the strong men of the ELMS pack this weekend,” added Griffin. 

Meanwhile, SMP Racing were untroubled in GTC as Ferrari took another podium sweep. Luca Persiani, Kirill Ladygin and Aleksey Basov dominated the race ahead of team-mates David Markozov, Olivier Beretta and Anton Ladygin, with Adrien de Leemer and Cedric Sbirrazzuoli rounding out the podium for AF Corse. Despite a promising showing in qualifying, McLaren were unable to challenge in the race, with the Alex Brundle-led no. 98 crew the best of the rest in fourth.

Qualifying

Harry Tincknell recovered from a spin to secure pole position for Jota Sport, four tenths clear of nearest challenger Franck Mailleux and 0.8 seconds faster than last year’s pole time set by former Jota driver Oliver Turvey. It marked the team’s third consecutive pole in as many races and crucially another point gained after their non-score at Silverstone.

Tincknell was delighted to preserve Jota's 100% qualifying record in 2014. (Credit: ELMS Media)

“We’ve certainly got the qualifying performance down to a tee at the moment,” he said. “I’m very happy to maintain the 100% record and score another point for the championship. We’re still playing catchup after the DNF at Silverstone, but I think every point counts and maybe those points for pole might make the difference.

“Of course qualifying is one thing but the race is completely different. It’s a long race, but we proved at Imola and Le Mans that we’re the team to beat at the moment, so hopefully we can have another good result – we certainly have the pace and there’s a lot of confidence flowing around our team at the moment.”

Tristan Gommendy was third in the TDS Ligier on its first outing in the ELMS, while home hero Christian Klien shaded Nelson Panciatici for fourth.

In GTE, Ferrari man Andrea Bertlolini took his second pole position of the year for SMP Racing, but the changes to the Balance of Performance meant it was a Porsche that gave chase, with factory ringer Richard Leitz making a one-off guest appearance with Proton Competition.

“The car was really good from the beginning of free practice one, but the race will be a lot more difficult,” warned the Italian.

Bertolini carried his searing pace from practice to qualifying. (Credit: ELMS Media)

Stuart Hall was another to benefit from the changes to the BOP, qualifying his Gulf Racing UK Aston Martin a season’s best third place ahead of Rob Bell’s JMW Ferrari, while Silverstone winner Matt Griffin languished down in 12^th, needing to pit for fuel by the time his tyres were up to optimal temperature.

“I was a little bit cautious everywhere, especially at the last corner, but we just managed to get it all together,” said a delighted Hall. “I knew we could do it, it was just a question of making sure I didn’t get any traffic, didn’t make any mistakes and piecing it all together. I left it pretty late but managed to pull it out of the bag! 

"Hopefully that’s hopefully given Dan an opportunity at the front of the field now to get on with his race. He’s been driving very well this weekend, we’ve been very evenly matched.”

After skipping Imola, Jan Magnussen returned with aplomb to give the all-Danish Formula Racing Ferrari GTC pole on his first visit to the circuit since the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix, although Kevin Korjus was not far behind in the resurgent ART McLaren.