G-Drive Racing and Kessel Racing both leave a drenched Spa Francorchamps with auto entries for the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours, for winning the European Le Mans Series LMP2 Teams’ and Michelin Le Mans Cup GT3 Teams’ titles respectively.
Swiss team Kessel Racing earned its invitation yesterday in the penultimate round of the 2018 Le Mans Cup season, when its #8 Ferrari 488 GT3 led home a 1-2-3 finish for the team in challenging conditions. As before the LMP3 Championship winners do not earn an entry in the Le Mans Cup.
For Kessel Racing it could be their first ever entry under their own name at the great race, the Swiss team have featured previously as service suppliers for others, most notably with the win for Scuderia Corsa in LM GTE AM in 2016.
G-Drive Racing meanwhile earn their entry having secured the Championship win in a topsy turvy ELMS event, started early to avoid the worst of the incoming weather but then red-flagged for appalling weather, with worse to come, at around the halfway mark.
With only half points awarded the chasing Championship contenders could not close the gap sufficiently to take the Championship to the wire at Portimao – this despite the #26 finishing 10th in class on the road, adjusted to 12th after a 2 minute stop and go for Jean Eric Vergne causing an incident that collected the #77 Porche and the #31 APR – Rebellion Oreca.
With Vergne having missed the opening ELMS round of the season that means that Roman Rusinov and Andrea Pizzitola are confirmed as Drivers Champions.
