This week the European Le Mans Series teams head to Portugal for the final race of the 2019 season, where the LMP2 and LMP3 class titles, and of course Le Mans entries, are still up for grabs.
For the four-hour race on the Algarve circuit, a 39-car field will take the start, with 18 cars in LMP2, 13 in LMP3 and 8 in GTE.
G-Drive looking to seal it
In the LMP2 class G-Drive Racing is hoping to seal the deal on the title, and score Aurus its first sportscar championship as an LMP2 brand.
Roman Rusinov, Job van Uitert and Jean-Eric Vergne will share the team’s 01 Gibson, the team holding a 13-point lead over the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA (a new chassis) of Memo Rojas, Paul Loup Chatin and Paul Lafargue. Unfortunately, as Vergne didn’t take part in the race at Monza, he can’t win the title, though he will be eager to play a big part in securing the honours for his teammates.
Three teams are in with a shout, the third car in contention being the #39 GRAFF ORECA, which is 26 points behind.
In order to take the title, the French team and its drivers Alex Cougnaud, Tristain Gommendy and Jonathan Hirschi, will need to take pole, win the race, hope that the G-Drive ORECA doesn’t score any points and that the IDEC trio doesn’t score more than 11 points.
While that is a long shot, the team will still be highly motivated to push hard, as the top two teams in LMP2 will receive an automative entry to Le Mans and second place in the standings is still well within reach.
Outside of the title contenders, United Autosports will be looking to put a cat amongst the pigeons after such a strong performance at Spa last time out. The British-flagged team can emulate its 2018 form by winning the final two races of the season if one of its two ORECAs score a victory.
The only notable change to the LMP2 entry is the return of Carlin’s Dallara, which didn’t compete at Spa in oder to give the injured Jack Manchester (who had a big off at Silverstone) time to recover. A strong finish for Manchester, Ben Barnicoat and Harry Tincknell would serve as somewhat of a reward for their persistence in what has been a challenging debut ELMS season for the British team.
Eurointernational and Inter Europol for the LMP3 title
After six races, there are just two teams left in the LMP3 title race. Consistency from both Eurointernational and Inter Europol’s #13 Ligier have created a dead-heat. Both teams are level on 94 points meaning the team that finishes highest in the classification will take the title.
If neither score though, Mikkel Jensen and Jens Petersen will take the title, as they have more wins (three) than Martin Hippe and Nigel Moore (one).
Eurointernational has three wins and a second-place, while Inter Europol has a win, three seconds and a third-place finish. Petersen and Jensen’s slip up was at Barcelona, where they retired. Had they finished strongly, they’d be the favourite here.
With titles (Drivers and Teams) and Le Mans entries on the line, expect fireworks from the 13-car LMP3 class.
Second Le Mans place up for grabs in GTE
Luzich Racing and drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi, Fabien Lavergne and Nicklas Nielsen may have won the titles and secured a Le Mans entry back at Spa, but there’s still reason to follow GTE closely on Sunday afternoon.
Like LMP2, the second place finisher in the GTE standings also gets handed a Le Mans entry. The past two years show that the Le Mans places for ELMS GTE teams are extraordinarily valuable, as ELMS GTE teams getting invited via the standard entry process has become less and less likely as the number of automatic invites and LMP2 teams has ballooned. The only saving grace may be that the GTE Pro class at Le Mans may be smaller than in recent years, though there has been growth in the WEC’s GTE Am class to somewhat offset that.
In the running for the second spot are the #77 Dempsey Proton, #83 Kessel Racing and #66 JMW Motorsport crews, with nine points separating them.
Added to the entry to bring the class tally to eight cars is the returning Ebimotors Porsche, which didn’t race at Silverstone or Spa due to the team being unable to sign drivers. Driving the Italian team’s 911 RSR will be Fabio Babini, Marco Frezza and Gianluca Giraudi.
The #88 Proton Porsche, as usual, features two TBAs and Thomas Preining, it remains to be seen whether Christian Ried will strike a last-minute deal to get the car out racing.
The 4 Hours of Portimao is set to run this Sunday at 12:30, immediately following Le Mans Cup finale. Then once all the celebrating is over on Sunday night, many of the ELMS teams will be back on track for three days in a post-season test, during which three of the four 2020 LMP3 cars will run in public for the first time with prospective customers getting a chance to sample the new machinery.
DSC understands that the new Ligier JS P320, Duqueine D08 and ADESS 03 EVOs are the three chassis that will run in Portugal. The Ginetta G61-LT-P3 is due to begin testing around the same time back in the UK.
