ELMS Round 1 Silverstone 4hrs

United Autosports complete a sweep of the prototype wins at a thrilling opening round of the 2017 ELMS…

The UK has been experiencing some glorious weather for a couple of weeks but in true British style, the typical bank holiday weather has arrived for the opening round of the European Le mans series.

Saturday is qualifying day and the temperatures are low, barely into the low teens with some strong winds whipping across the open land of the Silverstone circuit. As is normal now, ELMS has three separate qualifying sessions for all classes to give them more space to set themselves up for the quick laps.

Qualifying

GTE qualifying and the Stunning TF sport Aston Martin Vantage V8 is put on pole by Nicki Thiim with a 1.58.269 followed Its manufacturer sibling, the Beechdean Aston Martin with a 1:58.466 making it a GTE Aston sweep of their front row.

LMP3 qualifying was up next with a bumper pack of 16 cars majority being the favoured Ligier JS P3. Most of the session was dominated by United Autosports with their cars occupying the top 2 spots but a late lap from AT racing team put their car ahead and set them in the poe position for the LMP3 class, with a lap of 1:53.665, followed by the to United Autosports cars, No.2 Sean Rayhall setting a 1:53.786 and the No.3 car in 3rd with a 1:54.181.

Final qualifying was for the LMP2 cars, with more variety than the headline WEC grid, the LMP2 cars feature the new structure of prototypes with Brand new Oreca’s, Ligier’s and Dallara’s.

Short qualifying sessions make the laps ever so crucial but with the a few mistakes made, Richard Bradley in Graff racings Oreca 07 Gibson powered car entered the maggots beckets complex and spun the car into the gravel, bringing out the red flag. He was the major casualty of the qualifying putting the car off and now setting a competative time and starting in 28th on row 14.

Qualifying resumed after the red flag and the laps came in quick with less than 5 minutes remaining, the pole position chopped and changed between a lot of cars but by the end the Gibson powered Oreca 07 by Dragonspeed piloted by Ben Hanley was put onto pole position with a 1:44.040 followed by the No.32 United Autosports with a 1:44.314.

Race

2pm, the pit lane horn is sounded as the cars are released onto the circuit for the build up of the grid. A strong sense of anticipation is in the air as the grid begins to form and the Hospitality and VIP’s meander their way around the gleaming thoroughbred racing machines encasing the starting drivers in their safety cells. As soon as the grid is formed it seems as though the grid is being cleared to get them rolling in time for their extra long formation lap. At Silverstone we see a complete different start finish line to grid form up and pit location, with the formation on the Heritage pits on the old pit straight and start finish situated on the international straight with the wing.

As the clock ticked down to 14:30PM the cars rounded club corner onto the international straight with the late afternoon sun beating down on them. The glorious scream of the Gibson P2 engines powered through abbey followed by the low strung growl of the P3 power units chased by the final GT 1300+KG beasts led by the Aston Martin of TF sport.

The race seemed to start so well for Ben Hanley of Dragonspeed racing, retaining the lead and building upon it for the first hour, whilst the poor qualifying of Richard Bradley’s Graff racing oreca was being redeemed as he fought his way up through the LMP3 and LMP2 field.

As the first hour ended Ben Hanley passed over too Henrik Hedman which in turn took a few spins before the strong Dragonspeed entry came into gearbox troubles putting them well out the running for the overall race, Algarve Pro racing also had similar gearbox issues with their power unit scratching their chances off as well.

As the race progressed things seemed to settle and engineers plans were played out to the max. Leo Russel put on a stunning performance to pull back the G-Drive racing Oreca from third to first passing the No.40 GRAFF car as well as the Algarve pro racing Ligier to take the lead and capitalise on it. Pivotal decisions were made in the last stints of two teams, G-Drive went out and maximised their lead straight away where as Filipe Albuquerque contained himself and kept to a certain pace not dropping below 30 seconds back. The race ticked away but so did Leo Russel’s lead, taking too much from his tyres too early, Albuquerque’s Ligier was being pushed as hard as possible on his tyres that were obviously in far better condition compred to his track rival. On the penultimate lap of the race Albuquerque dived straight up the inside of Roussel at the loop needing no 2nd invitation or a moment of hesitation to secure first place and win the opening round of the 2017 ELMS

United Autosports also took the double, claiming LMP3 honours with Sean Rayhall and John Falb, the pairing took control at the start and dominated the entire race start to finish with a huge lead, so much that a late spin from John Falb made no difference and they still crossed the line with plenty of time. No. 6 360 racing and the No. 17 Ultimate racing Ligier completed the podium whereas the second United Autosports liger didn’t quite have the pace and settled for fourth.

GTE class had a new entry at the forefront all weekend and they even took the win on their debut in the series. TF sport are no new comers to GT racing but now are stamping their authority on the ELMS series too, Salih Yoluc started the racing just losing out the No.55 spirit of race Ferrari which took the early lead. Euan Hankey battled back to take the lead again before handing over to the star driver, Nicki Thiim. Thiim controlled the remainder of the race and built on the 50 second lead created by Euan Hankey to a huge 1 lap margin when crossing the line.