Jota's misfortune sees Greaves take European Le Mans Series crown

On a difficult day for Jota Sport, second place proved to be enough for Jon Lancaster, Bjorn Wirdheim and Gary Hirsch to wrap up the 2015 European Le Mans Series for Greaves Motorsport as TDS by Thiriet took victory in a frantic final round at Estoril. Needing to win to keep their title hopes alive, Ludovic Badey and Pierre Thiriet – ably supported by new-signing Nicolas Lapierre – did everything that was required of them in changeable conditions, but knew from the start that their destiny was not in their own hands due to problems suffered at Paul Ricard.

Greaves celebrated second like never before at Estoril - it was
enough to give them the ELMS crown (Nick Dungan).

Starting tenth after Greaves' fastest qualifying time was deleted, Wirdheim had climbed to fifth by the end of lap one, taking full advantage of the slightly damp conditions which caused Tracy Krohn, Leo Roussell and James Winslow to all spin on cold tyres at the first corner. By the time Hirsch climbed aboard, he was third, which would soon become second when Jota’s Simon Dolan, running on slicks, fell victim to a heavy rain storm and floated off the road at Turn Two, losing a lap while he was recovered from the gravel.

Until that point, all looked to be going to plan for Jota. Local man Filipe Albuquerque earned the team an additional point for qualifying on pole and pulled out a half-minute lead over the chasing AF Racing BR01 of Victor Shaytar, who inherited second when Badey ran wide through the gravel at Turn Three. Despite struggling to fire up the Gibson when pulling away from the pits, Dolan was comfortably leading when the rain hit. Almost as swiftly as it came, the rain soon disappeared, but that was little consolation for the luckless Dolan, who now had an enormous mountain to climb.

Shaytar now led from Hirsch and Thiriet, with David Markozov in fourth and Dolan fifth. Thiriet was the first of the lead bunch to pit and switch back to slicks, which proved to be an inspired call, as the fresh rubber vaulted Lapierre into the lead while Greaves and Jota struggled on with intermediates that were on their last legs.

Harry Tincknell took over from Dolan for the final stint, but suffered an even longer delay restarting the car after the stop. With the red mist descending, the fired-up Brit stalked fourth-placed Nicolas Minassian and set the race’s fastest lap before gallantly pursuing Mikhail Aleshin, but the chase had taken the best from his tyres and could progress no further. With no more rain forthcoming, there would be no late surprises.

All went to plan for Jota at the start, but it wasn't to last (Nick Dungan).

None that would change the destiny of the championship, anyway. Despite having to serve a stop-go penalty when Hirsch was adjudged to have released his belts too early, Lancaster was able to resume with a comfortable gap over Aleshin and Tincknell and brought the car home to scenes of jubilation in the Greaves pit, eventually finishing two points ahead of TDS and four ahead of Jota.

Jota’s valiant fightback could only yield fourth place, leaving them to rue the 17 points lost for overrunning Albuquerque’s maximum drive time at Paul Ricard, while AF Racing brought their second car home fifth ahead of the Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 03R following oil pressure problems for Murphy Prototypes.

Elsewhere, a bold tyre gamble from Marc VDS payed dividends as the Belgian squad collected an emotional win in their final outing in GTE. Starting from the rear of the grid, Henry Hassid managed to evade the first corner chaos and moved into an early fourth place, remaining firmly in touch with the lead group headed by Rory Butcher’s JMW Ferrari until Andy Prialux took over at the first round of pitstops. As conditions deteriorated, Marc VDS kept Prialux out on slicks, which proved to be the right call as the track soon began to dry, leapfrogging the BMW Z4 – also in its final race before the M6 model is introduced next year – ahead of the wet-shod Beechdean Aston Martin of British GT champion Andrew Howard.

JMW had gone for a similar approach, but with the less experienced Rob Smith now at the wheel, Prialux was closing rapidly when a second shower hit, bringing both in. VDS took the opportunity to insert Jesse Krohn, who continued the pursuit of Smith until the Ferrari cried enough, transmission problems bringing James Calado to a grinding halt on his outlap.

Marc VDS made the best of the challenging conditions to take a farewell win (Nick Dungan).

JMW’s misfortune opened the door for Howard, Jonny Adam and Alex Macdowall to take a strong second place on their ELMS debuts, while Mike Wainwright, Phil Keen and Adam Carroll made their first podium visit since their victory at Silverstone in the Gulf Racing Porsche.  

Matt Griffin, Duncan Cameron and Aaron Scott were just too far back to influence proceedings in fourth, while a 20-second stop-go penalty for speeding in the pitlane couldn’t prevent Formula Racing’s Mikkel Mac, Johnny Laursen and Andrea Rizzoli wrapping up the title.

TDS enjoyed a double success at Estoril as Franck Perera, Eric Dermont and Dino Lunardi the GTC championship with a second place finish. The BMW enjoyed a terrific early battle for the lead with Salih Yoluc in the TF Sport Aston Martin – which had led in the early stages with Briton Euan Hankey – but served a stop-go for improving their times under yellow flags, eventually allowing Giorgio Roda, Marco Cioci and Ilya Melnikov through to win in their no. 63 AF Corse Ferrari.

With the championship already wrapped up by Charlie Robertson and Sir Chris Hoy at Paul Ricard, there wasn’t much to play for in LMP3, but Gaetan Paletou and Mike Simpson showed their pace at Paul Ricard was no flash in the pan with a first win of the season in the sister LNT Ginetta. Despite spinning on the warmup lap, the Graf Racing Ligier of Eric Troulliet, Thomas Accary and Britain’s Garry Findlay finished second on debut, with Robertson and Hoy completing the podium in third.