G-Drive Racing Extends Championship Lead With Victory in Austria

The no26 Oreca-Gibson finished 19 seconds ahead of the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca, which had led for the first half of the race.  Nelson Panciatici held off a determined challenge from Olivier Pla in the no24 Racing Engineering Oreca to take second place by just 0.2 seconds.  However in post race scrutineering the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca was disqualified because the fuel did not conform to the one indicated by the organiser (Stewards Decision no35).  This promoted the no22 United Autosports Ligier-Gibson of Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque into the final podium position behind the Racing Engineering crew.

The LMP3 class was won by the no15 RLR MSport Ligier-Nissan for the second time in 2018, Rob Garofall taking the chequered flag just 5 seconds ahead of a hard charging Alex Kapadia in the no7 Ecurie Ecosse/ Nielsen Ligier.

Proton Competition took the first LMGTE win of the season for Porsche with a dominate win for the no88 Porsche 911 RSR of Gianluca Roda, Giorgio Roda and Matteo Cairoli finishing a lap ahead of the no55 Spirit of Race Ferrari F488 GTE.

4 HOURS OF RED BULL RING REPORT

The race started with the 42 strong grid heading into the first corner with the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca of Pierre Ragues getting ahead of the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca of Paul Lafargue.  Ragues then started to pull away, opening up a three second lead as Lafargue came under pressure from the no26 G-Drive Racing Oreca of Roman Rusinov. 

Rusinov had moved from 5^th to 3^rd when the red lights went but was judged to have jumped the start and had to come in for a drive through penalty, dropping the Russian driver back down the order.

Job Van Uitert also got a good start in the LMP3 category, moving up from third to first in the no15 RLR MSport Ligier-Nissan, with Mikkel Jensen also moving up to second from sixth in the no9 AT Racing Ligier.  The LMGTE pole sitter was the no66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari with Liam Griffin taking the start.  The British driver came under pressure from the no88 Proton Competition Porsche of Gianluca Roda, with the Italian taking the lead of the class and opening a healthy gap in the first hour of the race.

Back at the front Pierre Ragues continued to pull away from the rest of the field ahead of the first round of pitstops.  In LMP3 Mikkel Jensen moved ahead of Job Van Uitert but the roles were reversed a few laps later after the pitstops. 

JMW Motorsport’s day  went from bad to worse as the no66 Ferrari ground to a halt at Turn 6 with a suspected gearbox issue, forcing Alex MacDowall to retire the car.  This brought out the first Full Course Yellow period to allow the recovery of the F488 to a safe location.

There was also a collision between the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca of Memo Rojas and the no30 AVF by Adrian Valles Dallara of Konstantin Tereschenko, which also involved the innocent no10 Oregon Team Norma.  The no28 Oreca suffered some damage and the no30 Dallara went over the gravel trap.  Both cars received drive through penalties, the Oreca for causing the collision and the Dallara for ignoring blue flags and the resulting collision.

The no2 United Autosports Ligier-Nissan of reigning LMP3 champion John Falb also retired after the car dropped fluids when exiting the pitlane and then the LIgier stopped by the side of the track with smoke coming from underneath the car, with the American exiting rapidly as the marshals came in to help.  A safety car was deployed to allow the incident to be dealt with.

At the same time the first spots of rain started to fall on the circuit and the track was declared wet for the second half of the race.

Another Full Course Yellow period was declared when the no4 Cool Racing Ligier went off into the gravel at Turn 8 and had to be lifted back onto the escape road.

Back at the front of the field the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca of Nicolas Jamin was holding a 30 second lead over the no24 Racing Engineering Oreca of Norman Nato with Jean-Eric Vergne closing rapidly in the no26 G-Drive Racing Oreca, the French driver back in contention thanks to a change in strategy by the team after the earlier drive through penalty and a solid recovery drive by Roman Rusinov and Andrea Pizzitola.

John Farano was leading LMP3 in the no15 RLR MSport Ligier by 15 seconds ahead of the no13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Martin Hippe and the no7 Ecurie Ecosse/Nielsen Ligier of Alex Kapadia.  With less than 90 minutes of the race remaining Kapadia overtook Hippe for second and the German lost another place with Giorgio Mondini in the no11 Eurointernational Ligier went through as well. 

In the final hour the no11 Ligier had to come into the pits to repair the non functioning rear lights, dropping Mondini out of contention for the class victory and a class with the no83 Ferrari resulted in Mondini receiving a drive through penalty that was converted to 25 seconds added to the Italian’s race time after the chequered flag.

The no88 Proton Competition Porsche continued to dominate the LMGTE category, with Giorgio Roda well ahead of Duncan Cameron in the no55 Spirit of Race Ferrari and the no77 Proton Competition Porsche of Christian Ried.  Dennis Olsen took over the driving duties in the no77 Porsche and pushed hard to catch the no55 Ferrari. But the Norwegian pushed too hard and was given a drive through for constantly exceeding track limits in the final part of the race.

With the race entering the final hour Jean-Eric Vergne moved up to second place behind the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca of former ELMS Champion Nelson Panciatici.  A final Full Course Yellow period to recover a large piece of debris from the track saw Vergne go on the offensive at the restart in the no26 G-Drive Racing Oreca but Panciatici held on for a few corners.

However Vergne was not going to be denied and the newly crown FIA Formula E Champion went into the lead as Panciatici went into the pit for the final time.  The change in team strategy allowed Vergne to stay out for far longer than his rival and this meant the amount of fuel required to get to the chequered flag was far less.  After the short stop Vergne emerged 17 seconds ahead of the no29 Oreca of Panciatici, who had Olivier Pla’s no24 Racing Engineering Oreca snapping at his heels.

While the no26 G-Drive Racing Oreca drove to the chequered flag, the two French rivals behind were fighting for second place at almost every corner.  With less than ten minutes remaining Olivier Pla got a better run into Turn 3 as some backmarkers provided an opportunity.  The two cars were side by side up the hill but Panciatici held his nerve and stuck to the inside line to keep the position.

This continued right to the chequered flag where the two Oreca’s crossed the line split by just 0.2 seconds at the end of the four hour race.

Victory went to the no26 G-Drive Racing with the Russian team holding a 12 point advantage over the no24 Racing Engineering Oreca at the half way stage of the 2018 season.  Victory for the no15 RLR MSport crew has given them a 4.5 point advantage at the head of the LMP3 category over the no11 Eurointernational Ligier crew.  With JMW Motorsport failing to finish, the no88 Proton Competition crew now lead the LMGTE category with an 8 point advantage over the no80 Ebimotors Porsche crew, who finished third following the drive through penalty for the no77 Porsche.

The next race will be the 4 Hours of Silverstone on Saturday 18 August, which is round 4 of the 2018 European Le Mans Series.

CLICK HERE for the result from Round 3