As promised yesterday, we have an update about the point standings after the European Le Mans Series race at Spa Francorchamps.
G-Drive Racing #26 have already secured the LMP2 title with Andrea Pizzitola and Roman Rusinov, while Jean-Eric Vergne is second, since he wasn’t able to participate in the opening round at Paul Ricard due to his Formula E commitment in Rome. The only theoretical way for G-Drive to lose the Championship would be for Vergne going to a different team, outscoring G-Drive by 12 points in the final round – but why would he do that?
G-Drive Racing #26 only finished the race in 12th, and thereby only received 0,25 “solidarity” points for finishing the race. They were however already so far ahead of Racing Engineering in P3, that the aborted race with only half points being awarded, was enough to claim the title before the season finale.
There is a very good scrap for third position between Racing Engineering #24, IDEC Sport #28 and DragonSpeed #21, with a outside chance for Duqueine Engineering #29, who has to count on themselves winning the season finale at Portimao, while #24, #28 and #21 all retire.
RLR MSport #15 extended their LMP3 Championship lead to 360 Racing #6 by a massive one and a half points! United Autosports #3 currently sits third while EuroInternational #11, and Inter Europol Competition #13 also have the Championship driving alive. Ecurie Ecosse/Nielsen #7, United Autosports #2 and Ultimate #17 still have chances of finishing second or third, and we all know that everything can happen in LMP3, like we saw yesterday with #17 crashing into the tire barrier very early on in the race.
Proton Competition Porsche #88 continues to lead the GTE Championship ahead of JMW Motorsport Ferrari #66 and Spirit of Race Ferrari #55. Ebimotors Porsche #80 and Proton Competition Porsche #77 both have theoretical chances of clinching the title, but a lot has to go wrong for the three (four) competitors ahead. Krohn Racing Ferrari #83 are the last of the full season GTE teams, and no longer has a chance of even a medal, after being taken out yesterday. If only they had seen the chequered flag, at least they would have had an outside bet.
All these predictions are of course based on full points at the final round. But the south of Portugal is usually more weather-friendly that the Ardennes mountains around Spa Francorchamps.
Other than the Championship trophies, there are 2019 Le Mans auto-entries up for grabs for the winning team in LMP2, the winning team in LMP3 (for an LMP2 car) plus top-2 in GTE. On top of that, there will be price money of 100.000 Euro to the LMP2 Champions team, 70.000 for the GTE Champions team and 50.000 for the LMP3 Champions team.
The European Le Mans Series teams have one month break, until the season finale will be run in Portimao on 28 October, where the Championship trophies will be handed out.