ELMS: Double triumph for United Autosports at Silverstone

The 2017 European Le Mans Series season kicks off today with 4 Hours of Silverstone. The winners of the race are the #32 Ligier JS P217 of United Autosports in the LMP2, the #2 Ligier JS P3 of United Autosports in the LMP3 class and the #90 Aston Martin Vantage GTE of TF Sport in the GTE class.

Decisive overtaking with two minutes to go

The race was solved with an overtaking manouevre when two more minutes were on the clock. Defending European Le Mans Series LMP2 champions from G-Drive Racing were close to the season-opening victory but Ryo Hirakawa in the #22 Oreca 07 didn’t manage to defend his lead over Filipe Albuquerque in the #32 Ligier. At the end, Albuquerque crossed the finish line with an advantage of 6.339 seconds.

Albuquerque’s teammates in the #32 car were Will Owen and Hugo de Sadeleer. Ryo Hirakawas was sharing the #22 car with Leo Roussel and Memo Rojas. High Class Racing’s #49 Dallara P217 finished in the third place, driven by Dennis Andersen and Anders Fjordbach.

LMP3 class winning car of United Autosports

LMP3 win for United Autosports, GTE victory for TF Sport

United Autosports clinched another victory in the same race, as their #2 crew was the most successful in the LMP3 class. John Falb and Sean Rayhall did a perfect job, dominantly taking an LMP3 class win with 41-second advantage over 360 Racing’s crew in the #6 car: Terrence Woodward, Ross Kaiser and Anthony Wells. The #17 Ligier of Ultimate team finished third.

In the GTE class, the #90 Aston Martin Vantage was a dominant entry both in the qualifying and in the race. Nicki Thiim, Euan Hankey and Salih Yoluc started from pole and won the race with one-lap advantage over #77 Porsche 911 RSR of Proton Competition, driven by Mattero Cairoli, Joel Camathias and Christian Ried. One more Aston Martin’ crew reached a podium, the #99 crew of Beechdean AMR team: Andrew Howard, Ross Gunn and Darren Turner.