Since the LMGT3 formula was introduced to the European Le Mans Series in 2024, it has only produced one style of championship battle: wide open.
2024 saw an incredible nine cars enter the season finale still in mathematical contention, with the title changing hands on the final lap of the year.
12 months later, seven cars headed to Portimao in with a chance, as TF Sport vaulted up from third in the standings to claim season-long honours with a race win.
And so far, 2026 is following the same script. With two events remaining, all 14 cars can still become champion, and only seven points separate the top five crews.
The pressure, therefore, is on for someone to string two competitive results in the hopes that it means they can leave Portimao next month in possession of an automatic invitation to the 2027 24 Hours of Le Mans, as ELMS LMGT3 title winners.
Proton Competition’s #75 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3 of Richard Lietz, Tom Sargent and Matthew Kurzejewski currently leads the way on 53 points, having built its campaign off the back of a win at the season-opening 4 Hours of Barcelona.
“It was a great start,” Sargent told DSC. “Since then it’s been a little bit of a struggle.
“It’s tough with the success ballast in this series. It really hurts you. We kicked off straight away with the maximum weight we could take, and that was tough, so thankfully we’ve gotten rid of that and we’re back to only a very small amount of success ballast with the championship position.
“A win in this championship carries a lot of points, so it was important to get that, and I think we’re going to ride on the coattails of that for the rest of the season. Obviously, we need to get more, but hopefully that’ll keep us keep us going for now.”
The flowing nature of success ballast means that, unlike in many other series, the results of one event have a direct knock-on effect on the results of another. A race-by-race approach to putting together a season therefore needs modifying in accordance, with a focus on maximising what’s available on the day given the circumstances.
“With the way the success ballast works in this, it actually influences a lot on what happens,” Sargent explained. “So that’s also something that’s in the back of your mind.”
Only one point behind the #75 Porsche is TF Sport’s #33 Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R of Charlie Eastwood and rookies Alec Udell and Blake McDonald, as the British outfit seeks to defend its crown with an overhauled driver line-up.
A retirement in Barcelona, due to contact in the penultimate hour, meant that it started the season on the backfoot, but a second-place finish in Paul Ricard and victory in Imola brought the #33 Corvette back to the fore.
“We just were unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with someone else’s mistake, and that’s part of racing,” Udell reflected on Barcelona.
“It’s been kind of our concept the whole season to work on clean execution and take everything that you can on a weekend. We’ve had a couple of things here and there, and so has every team across the season, that have led us to maybe not being as far ahead as one would hope. There’s for sure five or six cars that are in the battle, so collecting as many points is always the most important.
“I think we did a good job of that over Imola and Paul Ricard, but didn’t quite maximise everything that we could have at Spa [where they finished P6].
“And so now we come into this race, and it’s a different beast. It’s been hot through a lot of the season, which I feel like suits this car pretty well. We’re generally decent on tyre degradation, and usually in hot conditions, I feel like the car comes alive.”
With Udell and McDonald new to not only the ELMS, but also a full-time campaign in Europe, Corvette factory driver Eastwood’s experience is a key tool in TF Sport’s arsenal.
“His knowledge of the car and of the tracks is extremely helpful,” Udell explained. “I think it’s two-fold. One is having good data to look at and good references, as well as someone who’s not always having to drive a ton in the car.
“And TF, they’ve got a good handle on the Corvette. They run them all over the world. You know the car is going to be in a good window when you show up, even if you might have to make some optimisations across the weekend you have an idea of where you want to go and what changes will get you in the window.
“He and I worked together over the last two years and have a good working relationship, so it’s been fun to be able to take some of the speed and pace that we had over last season [in IMSA] and bring it to some good results this season.”
Whilst the majority of the contending crews have benefited through driver stability throughout 2026, this isn’t the case in the #77 Proton Competition Porsche. Huub van Eijndhoven has been the only regular in a line-up which has changed between every round so far this year, and as such sits alone on 47 points.
“It’s been a bit of a wild season in those terms,” the Dutchman, who will race alongside Harry King and Martin Berry for the last two races of the season, said.
“It’s been fun adjusting to different situations, and also during the process we came away with two podiums and also a strong P5 finish at Paul Ricard. All of a sudden we’re in the mix, and I think Silverstone and especially Portimao should suit the Porsche.”
Van Eijndhoven is in his first season of GT3 racing, having made the step up from Carrera Cup, a proving ground he feels has given him the consistency and pressure-management skills needed to excel in his position as the crew’s Silver-rated driver.
“I think in Carrera Cup, my main strength was always consistency,” he reflected.
“Not DNFing, just make sure you’re in the top five, getting podiums in, and then at the end of the year it brings you good championship positions. And this is where we are at now. We’re consistent. I think at Spa we could have won. We had a bit of damage, which compromised our race pace, but in the end we executed a really good race and got P2.
“This is what we’re aiming to do in Silverstone as well. Have a clean race, be quick, no mistakes, and normally you should be in the mix for at least a top five finish. The goal here is to survive the weekend and get ourselves into a good position for the championship fight.”
That runner-up finish in Belgium was the #77 Porsche’s best result of the season, with the seven x seven racing-branded car having improved its finishing position in every race.
Alongside the traditional challenges of adapting to multi-driver racing, van Eijndhoven is also having to adjust to a significant change in his duties, with previously critical aspects of the 26-year-old’s weekends such as qualifying and race starts no longer part of his role, and an emphasis on delivering with minimal track time.
“It’s a different environment,” he said. “It’s not all about qualifying; it’s about tyre saving. You know this stuff. So yeah, going well. I’m satisfied, and if we can get rewarded with the title, will be a crown on the season.
“The pressure from Supercup you take with you. You have to perform in a few amount of laps, and I think this suits me well. And the rest of the weekend, I’m analysing data, watching onboards from the rest, and try to learn this way.”
Whilst van Eijndhoven is now going it alone, Team Qatar by Iron Lynx’s Ralf Aron enters Silverstone in the opposite situation.
The Mercedes-AMG factory driver is making his ELMS debut, teaming up with Abdulla Ali Al-Khelaifi and Julian Hanses in the #62 AMG LMGT3 which sits six points off the championship lead.
For the Estonian, joining a title-contending crew is a positive, since it proves the quality of the entry he’s slotting it.
“I view it as a positive thing because it means that the crew knows what they’re doing,” he said. “It means that the car is sorted. So I come into an environment where I just need to focus on myself a little bit, try to help the team as much as possible, but I’m not coming here to disrupt anything.
“It’s not like I need to come here and try to help the team find something. I think I’m just here to try to fit in as easy as possible and let the team do what they’ve been doing so far.”
After victory last time out at Spa-Francorchamps, at seven points back the #86 GR Racing Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo of Mex Jansen, Lorcan Hanafin and Michael Wainwright has also entered the fray.
Rather than being released from the pressure than an 11-year victory drought had created, Jansen believes that motivation has picked up further in the British squad, which ran well at Silverstone last season.
“You can really feel now everyone is even hungrier than they were before, knowing that the title fight is still on and we can still win this thing,” he declared.
“But there’s still two rounds to go. We’ve now got our home race, which I think is really cool. You can really feel that everyone feels at home and really looks forward to this event.
“The team has got great experience around here; I think we’ve got a great package with the Ferrari here to be able to perform well. We’ve got the 15 kilos of success ballast. A luxury problem of course, but this will hinder us slightly.
“The top five is all super close within the championship, and we’re all still in for a certain shot to win. Consistency sounds a bit cliche, but it will be key here in the end. A win [this weekend] would be great, but with a podium at least we should get to be able to do something in Portimão and have something behind our hands.”
As previously noted, success ballast will likely play a role in the fate of the championship. The top five cars in the standings are all carrying additional weight this weekend, with the most, 25 kilograms, aboard the #33 Corvette.
The best-placed unrestricted car in the standings is the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Daniel Serra, Mathys Jaubert and Takeshi Kimura, which at 13 points back is therefore well-placed to vault its way back into the championship picture if it can re-discover the form which netted it a win and a third-place finish across the opening two rounds of the year, before a pair of costly non-scores slipped the Swiss squad down the pecking order.
For the rest of the LMGT3 field, led by the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari at 25 points back, consistency will not be enough to win this year’s title. A big result this weekend, and misfortunate elsewhere, will be required for them to maintain a challenge into Portimão next month.
Images courtesy of David Lord
