Allay Racing from Sweden will join the Michelin Le Mans Series starting at Spa-Francorchamps over the Aug 19-23 weekend.
The team will enter one of its two twin-turbocharged Toyota-powered LMP3 Ligier JS-325s into the LMP3 Pro-Am category with the car shared by the bronze pairing of team owners Emil Hellberg and his younger brother Linus Hellberg.
Both drivers have bronze-rated FIA licences, and this is their first season competing in LMP3.
Up until now, both Emil (49) and Linus (38) have been racing in this year’s Winter Gedlich series and more recently the Creventic Prototype Cup with notable success.
Both brothers won races in the Gedlich series while Emil has proved a standout in the Creventic series, taking his first overall race win at Monza last weekend, backed up with a fine 2nd overall a day later.
Emil has had no less than four podiums in the six races he has competed in up against seasoned competition including Valentino Catalano, Danny Soufi, Mattis Pluschell, Nigel Moore and Markus Pommer. He currently lies 3rd in the overall Creventic points standings with two races to go.
The Hellberg brothers, whose mainstream business is producing and selling ski wear and outdoor apparel across the globe, hail from close to Gothenburg in Sweden. Linus started the business straight from school, and they have grown into an international brand over the past 20 years.
With a busy business to look after, it wasn’t until five years ago that they found the time to put together their own team and aim towards racing together at the Le Mans 24 Hour race.
“We started by racing in the ACI Sport-run Italian Sports Prototype Championship in a pair of Wolf GB08s back in 2022,” recalls Emil. He won the championship in 2023 with four victories, a pole position and three fastest laps.
A new challenge presented itself in 2025 when both brothers decided to enter the EuroCup-3 series with their own team initially based at the private Ascari track located near Ronda in southern Spain.
“We wanted to see how close we could get to the front, just to challenge ourselves,” said Emil with a wry smile.
It became apparent though that if they wanted to seriously aim to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours, they needed to forego single seaters and build the team around their own LMP3 programme.
And this is what they’ve done, basing the team near Estepona near Marbella with a blend of Spanish and experienced English team management.
The long-term plan is to enter the upcoming Winter Le Mans Series in the new support Series for LMP3 and GT3 with two LMP3 cars and look towards next year with a full season in the Michelin Le Mans Cup.
The brothers are also racing a single Ligier JS-P4 under the Allay Racing banner in the remaining rounds of the Ligier European Series, making each of the three remaining ELMS weekends very busy indeed with lots of driving ahead.
Pics Allay Racing/ Peter Heil
