A look back the 2015 LMGTE season

Vive La Difference

The LMGTE class in the 2015 European Le Mans Series may have been won once again by a team running the Ferrari 458 but this season saw victory for the Gulf Racing UK Porsche 911 and for the BMW Team MarcVDS BMW Z4 and the Aston  Martin Racing Vantage finished on the podium on its debut in Estoril, a podium that didn’t feature a Ferrari 458 for the first time since the start of the 2013 season.  This proves that the LMGTE class is one of the most competitive GT competitions in the world.

Over the course of the 2015 season the LMGTE grid featured 10 cars representing 6 nations and 38 drivers from 12 different countries.  There were four different winners in the five races held in the UK, Italy, Austria, France and Portugal, with nine of the ten cars entered finishing on the podium at least once during the six month season.

FERRARI

Six of the cars entered in the LMGTE class were the Ferrari 458 Italia. 

2015 will be remembered for the championship winning Danish team, Formula Racing, with Johnny Laursen, Mikkel Mac and Italian Andrea Rizzoli taking the title in the no60 Ferrari 458 Italia after scoring two wins at the Red Bull Ring and Le Castellet and a third place finish in Italy during the season.  Their total of 83 points was enough to win the 2015 LMGTE Driver and Team titles by 4 points.

AF Corse ran three LMGTE spec  458s and the no55 Ferrari of Aaron Scott, Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin were champion contenders right up to the final chequered flag of the season.  The Anglo-Irish trio scored two podium finishes at Silverstone (3rd) and at the Red Bull Ring (2nd) to finish the season on 63 points and 3rd overall.

The no56 AT Racing Ferrari was another title contender with Father and Son Alexander Talkanitsa Senior and Junior and Alessandro Pier Guidi scoring two pole positions and one victory at Imola.  They finished the season on 55 points which was good enough for 5th overall in both the Teams’ and Drivers’ Trophy.

The 66 JMW Motorsport 458 started the year well with Robert Smith, Sam Tordoff and George Richardson taking a second place finish at home at Silverstone.  Smith was joined by Jonny Cocker and Rory Butcher at Le Castellet and the team took their second podium with a third place in France.  49 points was good enough for 7th overall in the Team’s Championship while Smith finished 8th in the Driver’s standings.

The highlight of the 2015 season for the no51 AF Corse Ferrari of Matteo Cressoni, Peter Mann and Raffaele Gianmaria was  a pole position and a third place finish in Austria, with two 7th place finishes and two DNFs, they finished 8th in the Team championship and 12th overall in Driver’s title race with 28 points.

The no81 AF Corse 458 was the final Ferrari entrant with a one off entry at Silverstone for Rui Aguas, Michele Rugolo and Stephen Wyatt.  The team took the first pole position of the year but the race was a major disappointment for the trio with a DNF recorded and this left them with 1 championship point for the 2015 season.

PORSCHE
There were two Porsche 911 RSRs entered for the full ELMS.  The British no86 Gulf Racing UK 911 scored the first victory of 2015 on home soil at Silverstone with Adam Carroll, Michael Wainwright and Phil Keen celebrating on the top step of the podium.  The team had to wait until the final race of the year before a return to the podium, with the same trio of drivers finishing third at Estoril to finish the year on 56 points and 4th in the Teams’ championship.  Carroll and Wainwright also finish 4th in the driver standings, while Keen finished 7th after missing the race in Austria.

The second Porsche 911 RSR was run by Proton Competition and the highlight of the year for the German team was a second place in Imola for Christian Ried, Richard Lietz and Marco Mapelli.  The team took 55 points, the same as AT Racing, but finished in 6th overall with the Austrian team taking 5th thanks to their win in Italy.

BMW

The sole BMW Z4 on the 2015 grid was entered by the Belgian team BMW Team MarcVDS with former World Touring Car Champion Andy Priaulx joining French driver Henry Hassid and Finn Jesse Krohn.  Three four places finishes at Silverstone, Imola and Red Bull Ring was followed by a second place at Le Castellet and victory at Estoril.  The team finished the season with 79 points, 4 points behind the no60 Formula Racing Ferrari and taking the Vice Champions position in both the Team and Driver championships.

ASTON MARTIN

Newly crowned British GT Champions Andrew Howard and Jonathan Adam took part in the final race of the year with a view of competing in the full European Le Mans Series in 2016 and also race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Howard and Adam were joined by Alex MacDowall  in the Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 and fought hard to take a well deserved second place on the podium in the their first race.   The 18 championship points put them in 9th place in the Teams’ Championship and in 13th overall in the Drivers’ standings.

2015 LMGTE TEAMS classification

2015 LMGTE DRIVERS classification