Alongside the 2021 Championship trophies awarded at the season finale at Portimao, co-hosted by Allan McNish and Hayley Edmonds, were a number of special awards with Algarve Pro Racing/ G-Drive’ John Falb named as Gentleman Driver of the year, Team of the year went to Team WRT and Revelation of the year going to Giorgio Sernagiotto.
Falb, therefore, has taken the very first LMP2 Pro-Am title, a second ELMS title that sits alongside his LMP3 Championship win with United Autosports in 2017.
Also of note is that his co-Champion in LMP2 Pro-Am, Rui Andrade (above) becomes the first Angolan racing driver to win a title in international motorsport – and that achievement was marked by Angolan national TV sending a news crew to Portugal. Polish national TV was also in attendance for the end of season awards that saw Robert Kubica crowned overall Champion together with Team WRT teammates Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz
It was a packed timetable at Portimao with the regular ELMS supports of the Michelin Le Mans Cup and Ligier European Series also joined by Porsche Carrera Cup France and the Alpine Europe Trophy. Ex ELMS and Le Mans Cup racers Victor Blugeon, Nicolas Misslan and Le Mans Series veteran Raymond Narac were out racing in the Porsche one-make races, in the Alpines, Inter Europol’s Ugo de Wilde was in the Championship hunt coming into the weekend and won the Sunday morning race but both he, and impressive Saturday race winner, French female drive Lilou Wadoux, would not overhaul Jean-Baptiste Mela who scored a second consecutive title.
A late addition to the driver line-ups in Michelin Le Mans Cup was the eye-catching combination of John Falb and James Allen in the #18 Muehlner Duqueine. They would feature in the thick of the action before a problem dropped them down the order.
The final race of the season will see plenty of testing opportunities in the Portuguese sunshine to come in the days following the race weekend. Amongst the most interesting runs already confirmed are a test with the Duqueine Team LMP2 Oreca for LMP3 standout Laurents Hörr plus fellow DKR racers Mathieu de Barbuat and Jean Glorieux and an unnamed F3 driver.
The DKR team’s clinching of the ELMS title, their fifth title win in recent years after winning the Michelin Le Mans Cup LMP3 title from 2017-2020, looks set to see the long-standing Luxembourg-based squad graduate to LMP2 next season for a full season effort alongside the Le Mans 24 Hours start they earned with the ELMS title.
Nielsen Racing will also test an LMP2, this time a car loaned by Algarve Pro Racing, the team evaluating an LMP2 program alongside their planned 2022 LMP3 efforts.
Proton Competition’s Christian Ried is set to sample a Ligier LMP3 car, with no plans for a race effort next season but simply to sample the car, and to contrast the driving experience.
Amongst the very welcome visitors to the ELMS paddock, this weekend were United Autosports-bound Josh Pierson, joining the team to observe ahead of an LMP2 test next week.
Thomas Laurent was also on-site and taking meetings with some of the LMP2 teams to try to find a berth for 2022.
Ultimate’s Francois Heriau returned to the paddock too whilst recovering from a broken collar bone that sidelined him for Le Mans and the second half of the ELMS season. He’s set to return with the team in 2022.
And there was a welcome visit too from Hugues de Chaunac, working the paddock to introduce Oreca’s new Technical Director, ex Renault Sport F1 engine technical director Rémi Taffin, Taffin replaces Oreca’s long-standing technical head David Floury who moved to Toyota Gazoo Racing earlier this year.
