ANS Motorsport claimed its first Michelin Le Mans Cup victory at Silverstone this afternoon, as the #9 Ligier JS P325 – Toyota of Louis Iglesias and Maxwell Dodds triumphed in a chaotic race impacted by a mid-race downpour.
Iglesias charged from eighth on the grid to the lead in the opening stint, before being the last of the frontrunners to pit. This coincided with the deployment of the Safety Car and the arrival of a brief spell of heavy rain, enabling Dodds to emerge still in the lead on wet tyres with only three other runners – all also on wets – on the lead lap.
This included the championship-leading #85 R-ace GP Duqueine D09 – Toyota of Danial Frost and Enzo Peugeot, and Peugeot stalked Dodds on a drying circuit for the majority of the 25-minute sprint to the finish.
Peugeot passed Dodds into Brooklands with six minutes to go, but the #85 Duqueine had already been assessed a 10-second time penalty for a Full Course Yellow infringement in the opening hour, meaning that by finishing 3.241 seconds behind Dodds comfortably claimed victory for the #9 Ligier.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” Dodds declared. “I think after such a difficult season, we came here really wanting to do well after a good weekend at Spa, and then to win, particularly with all my family here, is such an amazing feeling.”
Second-place was more than enough, however, for R-ace GP to wrap-up back-to-back LMP3 Teams’ Championships with a race to spare, and Frost and Peugeot to claim the Drivers’ title.
“This has been such a meaningful year, and the team and Enzo have done an amazing job,” Frost said. “We were all working to the same goal as a team, and it’s super nice that we can end it off one round earlier.”
The #70 Team Virage Ligier of Vic Stevens and Jude Peters finished third, with the #19 Brutal Fish Campos Racing Ligier of Matus Ryba and Luca Fluxá Cross the last of those to have restarted on the lead lap and finishing fourth.
Having switched back to slick tyres, the #12 Brutal Fish Campos Racing Ligier headed those to have unlapped itself in fifth, ahead of the #29 Forestier Racing by VPS Ligier.
In seventh and eighth overall, Rinaldi Racing finished 1-2 in LMP3 Pro/Am with its pair of Ligiers, which carved through the field on slick tyres.
The victory went to the #66 Ligier of Steve Parrow and Mikkel Gaarde Pedersen, ahead of the sister #71 entry of Stefan Aust and Felipe Fernandez-Laser.
The #58 GG Classics Ligier finished third, with the #98 Motorsport98 Ligier Gillian Henrion charging from fourth to the lead in just three corners on the final restart, only to fall back to fourth as a consequence of having stayed on wet tyres.
This means that the LMP3 Pro/Am title fight continues to the finale, with Eric De Doncker and Henrion 14 points clear of Parrow and Gaarde Pedersen.
The early protagonists in LMP3 Pro/Am, the #34 Inter Europol Competition and #48 Allay Racing Ligiers, also fell back in the latter half of the race as tyre strategies unfolded, and finished in seventh and eighth respectively.
10th in LMP3 Pro/Am was the #16 Ajith Redant by Virage Ligier of Ajith Kumar and Romain Vozniak, with the Indian actor rewarding his many supporters, who – alongside green flag waver C.Joseph Vijay – played a key role in the sell-out crowd and gave the event an atmosphere previously unseen in the Michelin Le Mans Cup, with a points finish.
And in GT3, Kessel Racing finished 1-2, with its #17 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Lorenzo Innocenti and David Fumanelli claiming class honours in 15th overall.
The #21 Ferrari of Oscar Ryndziewicz and Giacomo Altoe was second, 9.382 seconds back, with Ryndziewicz cutting his deficit in the Drivers’ Championship to just five points after a difficult race for Philipp Sager.
Sager, in the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, lost the majority of a lap due to the deployment of a Safety Car shortly after the 30-minute mark, just after Sager had been lapped by Frost but before the top seven in GT3 had been.
The #10 Aston Martin was unable to recover and finished a lowly ninth.
The #54 Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) completed the podium, remaining in championship contention at 20 points back, whilst the #17 Ferrari is also still a factor at 24 points off the lead with 26 still available.
Fourth went to the pole-setting #11 Code Racing Development Aston Martin, aboard which Stéphane Lemeret had dominated the opening stint, with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari ending up fifth after ceding the lead by pitting to change tyres after the final restart.
The 2026 Michelin Le Mans Cup season will conclude at Portimão on 8th to 10th October 2026.
Image courtesy of Le Mans Cup
