It was a very action-packed race when European Le Mans Series held Round 2 of the championship at Imola in Italy.
The 41 car big field had loads of collisions, yellow flag zones, full course yellows and safety car.
DragonSpeed started the race from Pole Position and led the first 27 laps of the race with Nicolas Lapierre behind the wheel. After that they fell a bit back with bronze driver Henrik Hedman as driver, before Ben Hanley and Lapierre took over the car and drove it back to 3rd place at the end of the race.
Instead it was Thiriet by TdsRacing with Pierre Thiriet, Mathias Beche and Ryo Hirakawa that took the victory in front of G-Drive Racing with Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Giedo Van Der Garde.
G-Drive Racing defended their lead in the championship and even build on it since SMP Racing had a really bad day at the office.
Proton Competition #77 had complete control over the GTE field, leading every single lap from the start to finish. They let JMW Motorsport, AT Racing, Proton Competition #88, Aston Martin Racing and AF Corse #55 fight over the rest of the podium positions. They finished in that order but 3rd to 6th place all finished on the same lap.
The GTE Championship is led by Aston Martin Racing ahead of AT Racing and Proton Competition.
There was a lot of battles in LMP3. In the field of 20 cars, there was an impressive 11 lead changes. United Autosports #2 ended as winners ahead of Eurointernational and Panis Barthez Competition, who finished on the same lap as the winners.
With 2 out of 2 victories in the class, United Autosports #2 has a comfortable lead ahead of their teammates in car number 3 and Duquenine Engineering.
Photo: AdrenalMedia.com
The end to the race was a bit tame, since the last 40 minutes was run under full course caution followed by safety car due to heavy rain. Even under FCY we saw cars spinning off the track, so race control decided to deploy safety car instead to control the field, and it stayed out until the end of the race.
ELMS will be back at Red Bull Ring on July 17th. So for the competitors that don’t go to Le Mans, it will be a nice long holiday.
