Home Win For Team WRT Clinches ELMS Title

Team WRT managed to survive a tumultuous opening phase to win the fifth round of the European Le Mans Series at their home-track of Spa-Francorchamps to not only take their third victory of the season but also seal the title in the LMP2 championship one race early.

Following an incident-packed few days in the Belgian Ardennes, all eyes were set on the opening lap of the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and the 37-car-field did not fail to deliver. As the LMP2’s reached the La Source hairpin for the first time it was TF Sport’s Salih Yoluc who outbraked himself and ran into Roman Rusinov while Phil Hanson in the United Autosports car was another casualty of the first-corner melee.

With Hanson a lap down and Rusinov’s hastily repaired G-Drive car grinding to a halt on lap two a huge opportunity opened up for Team WRT to take the title on their home track. Robert Kubica emerged from the chaos at the start in second, just behind the pole-sitter Charles Milesi. The new COOL Racing signing impressed as he sped away from Kubica and Patrick Pilet in the IDEC Sport Oreca but the LMP2 Pro-Am team knew it would be unable to hold off the WRT car in the long run and focussed its strategy instead of winning their own category.

Once in the lead and with Yifei Ye behind the wheel, it was a not so simple matter of keeping the nose clean while fending off the attentions of first IDEC Sport and later the #32 United Autosports car. The fact that the British team even made the start with the newly built Oreca following Nico Jamin’s massive Eau Rouge crash in qualifying was already a superhuman effort but when Manuel Maldonado emerged in front after a quick pit stop there were plenty of smiles all around.

However with a full set of tyres lost in the Saturday crash following an early puncture in the race, United knew they would not have the Goodyear rubber to keep the car upfront, meaning that as the race progressed the team slipped back, nursing what little grip they had. Job van Uitert held on valiantly in his fight with Will Stevens but had to concede and finished fifth.

There were no such worries for Team WRT and as the race headed to the checkered flag, Louis Deletraz just had to survive a late Full Course Yellow and not get caught by the Duqueine Engineering Oreca of Tristan Gommendy. Deletraz delivered, as he has done throughout the year and together with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye took the title for Vincent Vosse’s team, adding to the Le Mans victory. Yifei Ye also becoming the first driver ever to win the overall Asian and European Le Mans Series titles in the same season.

Third went to Panis Racing while COOL Racing took the LMP2 Pro-Am class and fourth overall, just ahead of an out-of-rubber United Autosports car.

LMP3 was won by DKR Engineering after an early battle with Inter Europol and United Autosports. Rob Wheldon held on for a long time before Mathieu de Barbuat found a way through. Together with Laurents Hörr the young Bronze driver proved the class of the field while championship leaders COOL Racing shook off a bad qualifying result thanks to a great start by Nicolas Maulini to set themselves up for a great race.

It wasn’t a clear run to the finish line for COOL’s Matt Bell, however, as he had to fight hard to keep United’s Wayne Boyd off his tail in the final moments of the race. The Brit managed it and the extra points might prove vital in the French team’s fight with DKR Engineering for the title come Portimao. Only one point separates the two teams in their quest for the title and the Le Mans entry that comes with it.

GTE once more provided an exciting race with Proton Competition making the initial running. However, a great stint by Rino Mastronardi put the Iron Lynx Ferrari in the lead of the race, followed by Francois Perrodo in the AF Corse Ferrari. As the race settled down, it proved that Perrodo had put the team in an ideal position that teammates Collard and Rovera were quick to capitalize on. AF Corse seized the initiative and never let it go, taking their second victory of the year.

Iron Lynx Ferrari #80 finished second, only 25 seconds back to strengthen their hold on the title fight. Their chances of winning the title were greatly helped by an unfortunate crash for Duncan Cameron in Les Combes that left the Spirit of Race Ferrari stranded and out of the race.

Third went to the Iron Dames Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Belgian racer Sarah Bovy after initially fighting for the lead. That the Iron Lynx made it to the podium at all was in no small part thanks to Frey who battled with Proton Competition’s Felipe Laser all the way to the end to take a well-deserved podium.

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