ELMS – Silverstone 2018

G-Drive notch up another ELMS win in the books whilst JMW take class honours in GTE.

ELMS Qualifying was an early one today starting before lunchtime at a still very grey, cool and cloudy Silverstone circuit. First out on circuit was the GTE cars for their 10-minute session. From the start, the Proton Racing cars were on the pace but it came down to Matteo Cairoli who claimed pole position with a 1:58.704, the sister car was a mere 0.06 seconds slower with the #86 Gulf Racing Porsche in third position on their grid.

LMP3 were next out on the circuit with their deep roaring tone taking over the airways, it was an almighty 10 minute battle for pole position ending with the #12 Eurointernational Ligier topping the sheets with a 1:55.508, Second quickest was the #6 360 racing Ligier just 0.05 behind and 3rd quickest was the #2 of United Autosports just another 0.1 further back.

Finally, the LMP2 machines graced the circuit. The unmistakable Gibson engines burst into life from the national pitlane and down towards Stowe. G-drive set the pace, to begin with and no one was getting close but in the dying minutes Will Stevens found some clear track and upped his pace in every sector to put in a 1:43.690 for the #23 Panis Barthez Ligier, handing them their first pole position, something they’ve been close to all season. Second quickest was the #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca who ended up slower by 0.8 seconds. Third quickest was the #21 Dragonspeed racing Oreca chassis only another 0.1 seconds back from g-drive.

After a very heavy cloud filled sky all morning, the sun began to burn through just as the cars were released out onto the circuit for the grid formation. Sun-kissed new Silverstone track surface was heating up nicely for the start of the 4-hour affair ahead of the ELMS teams, just throwing the questions of setups and tyre pressures into the mix just before the start.

The green flag is dropped at 14:30 on the dot as the cars come to the International start-finish straight, the #23 gets the drop and maintains the lead into the first corner over the #26 G-drive Oreca and the dragon speed Oreca just holds position over the #29 Duqueine engineering machine through farm corner. Mid-pack, some locked brakes caused a couple of cars to go wide before the LMP3 cars arrive on the scene, with the #2 caught up in an incident and forced into a spin, Luckily no one collected the car as it spans from the inside to the outside of the corner.

The cars soon settled into a rhythm only a couple of laps into the race and the gaps began to stretch out nice throughout the field. The closest battle still remained for 5th to 10th place in the LMP3 field as the cars were separated by just over 2 seconds with positions changing at multiple corners throughout the laps that followed.

The race didn’t have too many incidents throughout, cars kept to themselves and tactics played out, only one very short Full course yellow during the first hour which helped certain teams who hadn’t pit for their first stops, most notably the G-drive racing Oreca, where it took the lead on lap 32 and never looked back. The #26 G-drive squad have now made it three wins in a row this season putting one hand on the title pretty much now.

Despite the very quiet first 3 quarters of the race, the last hour became very eventful, the tactics played out and the podium became closer than any other fight on track. Racing Engineering #24 was looking really strong but what looked like a simple mistake was made going into the Vale chicane and the car went off across the gravel into the barrier. It turned out Norman Nato in the #24 had a right front brake failure which caused the car to go straight on at the Vale and subsequently render the car out of the race.

Not long after Jean Eric Vergne had increased his lead to a full lap over the second-placed #28 IDEC sport Oreca in the hands of Paul Lafargue. As the dying hour counted down #21 in the hands of Lapierre was hunting down #28, Lafargue didn’t have the pace of Lapierre and it didn’t take long for him to promote the #21 onto the second step of the podium after the #28 had to pit for a last-minute splash of fuel but still retained the 3rd step on the podium.

LMP3 saw the fight continue from the start all the way until the end, the final hour clicked over and the #3 United Autosport machine took their first 2018 season win, where they took the classic endurance approach and stayed out of trouble and stuck to the plan. This simple race tactic paid off for them as they cruised to the win in the end. Ecurie Ecosse battled through the field and were promoted to 2nd place in their class after the awful bad luck of #2 united autosports continued as the car refused to fire back into life after their final stop. #17 ultimate racing rounded out the podium positions for the class and were the highest place norma after the two Ligier chassis claimed 1st and 2nd.

JMW #66 overcame the rest of the GTE field and a penalty to take the class win. The race had a been a battle all race long, it felt like all this tension was building and something had to give. Coming into the final hour it was both #77 and the #88 Porsche’s along with the #66 Ferrari of JMW tied together. Liam Griffin behind the wheel had been tussling with the #88 Porsche before eventually retaking his position again just as he decides to pull into hand the off to Miguel Molina. As the car returned to racing the stewards had decided to hand out a 10 seconds penalty for exceeding track limits but this didn’t stop Molina. With Matt Griffin on board in the spirit of race Ferrari out front after the pitstops, Molina was on a mission to catch Griffin, reeling him in lap by lap all the way to under 3 seconds. In what seemed like a movie plot, the now leading #55 spirit of race Ferrari was accused and found guilty of exceeding track limits and therefore handed a 10-second penalty too putting it all level between the battling Ferrari’s for the win but with closing Porsche’s not far behind. Molina passed Griffin for the lead and seemed to have far superior grip left in his Dunlop Tyres, he began to pull a gap instantly but still needing to overcome the 10-second penalty handed to the squad.

Cairoli in the #88 Porsche was closing on a struggling Matt Griffin, Cairoli passed Griffin with ease but not with enough pace to fight the JMW Ferrari, Molina had been pushing as much as he could since his stop. When he crossed the line it was fingers crossed for JMW, and all the wishing worked, #88 crossed the line in second place 10.126 seconds behind which instantly changed to 0.126 on the computer screens. All the pushing meant that JMW claimed the win by just enough to overcome a penalty and take class honours.
Spirit of race #55 made it to the end on the crippled rubber left, but limping it home Matt Griffin claimed the final step of the podium for Spirit of race.

All words and Images by Mike Widdowson.