JMW Motorsport Riding High

The 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans saw success for one of the top teams in ELMS, JMW Motorsport.  The British team were missing from Le Mans in 2016 and secured their position on the 2017 grid by finishing as ELMS LMGTE Vice Champions at Estoril last October. 

JMW Motorsport continued to use the Ferrari F458 Italia in 2017 at the opening two rounds of the ELMS.  At Silverstone the team finished 5^th in class and two laps behind the winning Aston Martin run by TF Sport.  The decision was taken to switch to the new F488 and the race in Monza would be the F458s final outing. 

What followed could only be described as a fairytale ending to a fantastic career for the oldest car in the ELMS as Rob Smith, Jody Fannin and Jonny Cocker stood on the top step of the podium in Italy after finishing 7.9 seconds ahead of the championship leading TF Sport Aston Martin.

The next challenge was the 85^th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the debut of the new Ferrari F488 in the yellow livery of JMW Motorsport.  Rob Smith was joined by former F1 racer Will Stevens and Belgian GT ace Dries Vanthoor and the team set about preparing a brand new car for the world’s toughest endurance race.

A faultless run on the 17/18 June saw the yellow Ferrari take the chequered flag two laps ahead of the second placed car, another ELMS Ferrari, the no55 Spirit of Race F488 of Duncan Cameron, Aaron Scott and Marco Cioci.

Rob Smith said: “It was faultless from start to finish, car, team, procedures, no pit lane speeding, no penalties. We were just quick and consistent, in fact no dramas at all!  Dries, proper superstar in the making, F1 star Stevens cool as ice and Smith as excited as a school kid.   Unbelievable, it just went round.”

JMW Motorsport now head to Austria as 24 Hours of Le Mans Champions and are currently second in the ELMS LMGTE title race, 9 points behind TF Sport.  Can they add another victory to their 2017 tally at the Red Bull Ring?