[ELMS Race] 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring

[Akrapovic]

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Pre-race setup

» 36 Cars on the entry list. 13 cars make up a very healthy LMP2 field, 17 LMP3 entries and a thin but high quality 6 GTE-Am entries are due to take the start.

» SMP return to the series with a Dallara P217. Piloting the car will be Formula V8 3.5 drivers, Egor Orudzhev and Matevos Issakyan.

» Gustavo Yacaman replaces Franck Matelli in the #40 Graff Racing car. He joins James Allen (no not that James Allen) and Richard Bradley for Monza.

» Ryo Hirakawa is racing in the SuperGT Championship this weekend. His seat in the #22 G-Drive Racing Oreca will be taken by DragonSpeed sporting director, Nicolas Minassian.

» Ligier factory driver and all-round superstar Olivier Pla will replace David Zollinger in the #28 IDEC Sport Ligier JSP217 for the remainder of the season. With Pla at the wheel, the IDEC Ligier might upset some champion contenders during races.

» Tockwith Motorsport return from a difficult WEC race at the Nurburgring. The car retains the Gulf colours for the rest of the 2017 season.

» Although the class size remains the same, there is an additional Norma M30 scheduled to start at the Red Bull Ring. Duqueine Engineering have swapped one of their Ligier JS P3s for a Norma, raising the number to 3.

» JMW will run the new Ferrari 488 GTE in the European Le Mans Series for the first time. The car made it's debut at Le Mans, replacing the aging 458. It is the first time since 2011 that there will be no Ferrari 458 on the ELMS grid.

» Larbre Competition will not race at the Red Bull Ring. After a single race at Monza in preparation for Le Mans, the team has opted not to return to the series.

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Comments, especially on language, grammar, spelling, etc welcome.

[Maelochs]

Just found out I have to work .... but ... I cna get the live stream at work, so I guess I can't cry.

It will be fun to watch the DPis on a tiny track and the n the P2s on a slightly less tiny track the next day.

The only comment I can make is that I am glad you posted this. Too often I forget the race until I read about how good it was on this site, later.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

It will be fun to watch the DPis on a tiny track and the n the P2s on a slightly less tiny track the next day.

I might be wrong, but I don't think the Prototype class is at Lime Rock. I think it's GTD and GTLM only?

Originally Posted by Maelochs

The only comment I can make is that I am glad you posted this. Too often I forget the race until I read about how good it was on this site, later.

Yeah this is something I kept having problems with. Remember when IMSA, WEC, ELMS, Blancpain had races became messy. So I'm hopefully working on a 'fix' for that, but it would require reading an external site. More on that later!

[Akrapovic]

LMP2 Qualifying about to begin. This link will work if you want to rewatch qualifying later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvY6ODOs6Xs

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Yeah this is something I kept having problems with. Remember when IMSA, WEC, ELMS, Blancpain had races became messy. So I'm hopefully working on a 'fix' for that, but it would require reading an external site. More on that later!

Andy Blackmore's calendar was a God's end for this (even when dates had changed I would see them on the calendar and remember to edit the new one in, but I don't think he's done one this year.

[Akrapovic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ab1yHrhmWc

Le Mans Cup race beginning.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Yeah this is something I kept having problems with. Remember when IMSA, WEC, ELMS, Blancpain had races became messy. So I'm hopefully working on a 'fix' for that, but it would require reading an external site. More on that later!

Originally Posted by J Jay

Andy Blackmore's calendar was a God's end for this (even when dates had changed I would see them on the calendar and remember to edit the new one in, but I don't think he's done one this year.

This is handy:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...csFqiqfSE/edit

It is updated weekly.

The bad part is that you start to follow other less known series (often free official streams available) and weekends become even more full.

[Scorchess]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ab1yHrhmWc

Le Mans Cup race beginning.

Actually watched most of that. Very entertaining!

[Starfish Primer]

Excellent stuff the fight between Buret and Lapierre, sadly the TV decided to switch to 2 LMP3 when Lapierre got the 3rd positiom.

[S griffin]

I enjoyed it too, nice to see TOC doing well

[Akrapovic]

Rojas dropping back. Shows how good a job Roussel did. Silver driver, fastest on track.

[Maelochs]

This isn't real prototype racing. If this were an IMSA race there would have been six collisions by now.

[Starfish Primer]

Red Bull Ring is an excellent track.

[Maelochs]

It seems ELMS pulls off a good or very good race every time. I think the tighter track with elevation changes helps here ... keeps the cars close and creates visual drama ... but the level of preparation and the driving talent, even from the bronze drovers, is admirable.

In IMSA, is is expected that the bronze drivers will cause multiple collisions and the top-ranked pros are good for at least one per race. (Though I must say they did a tremendous job at Lime Rock yesterday,)

[Akrapovic]

Good clean race this one.

I think we'll get the first FCY now with the Norma spun and stopped. Shame for the Norma, was looking like a win for that chassis. edit: no yellow

No idea what SMP are up to. Bizarre pit stop strategy and now the engine cover is off to repair the air jacks.

[Akrapovic]

DragonSpeed slowed and stopped. Almost certainly will be a FCY. United Autosports might have pitted too early and missed a chance to save a lot of time.

[Akrapovic]

Photo: United Autosports

United Autosports held off a recovery charge from G-Drive by DragonSpeed racing to take the win at the 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring. Proving there is more to winning that owning an Oreca, the team executed a brilliant late race pit stop to leap the #22 G-Drive car in the last 20 minutes of the race.

DragonSpeed looked to control the race from the start, locking out the front row in qualifying, but United Autosports threw a spanner into the works at the start and split the DragonSpeed cars into turn 1. Super-silver driver, Leo Roussel used the clear track to his advantage and ran off into an early lead in the G-Drive branded car, whilst Lapierre played catch-up in the sister Oreca.

Despite leading much of the race, the win never looked comfortable for DragonSpeed. In the final splash and dash pit stops, United Autosports and Filipe Albuquerque emerged 12 seconds in front of Roussel. With just 18 minutes to go, there wasn't time for Roussel to respond.

The #21 DragonSpeed car would never reach the podium, and spluttered to a stop at the end of the 3rd hour. The team reporting fuel problems were the cause of the DNF. Graff Racing managed an unexpected 3rd and 4th places, with SMP in 5th in their first race back in the ELMS. The win for United closes the gap in the championship to G-Drive to just 4 points. High Class Racing are currently third in their debut LMP season.

After the domination of the Oreca 07 at Le Mans, it was clear that the playfield was more level when the cars were fitted with the regular high downforce kits. DragonSpeed may have been fastest over a single lap, but United Autosports Ligier JS P217 was never out of contention. Equally encouraging was the bursts of speed from the Dallara P217 chassis - SMP, High Class Racing and*Cetilar Villorba Corse all showing they had pace at various points.


Photo: United Autosports

The LMP3 race had an equally dramatic finish, as the leading #2 United Autosports Ligier JS P3 receiving a drive through penalty for track limits violations in the final moments of the race. The car emerged from the pit lane with a small lead over the #11 Eurointernational Ligier, which it held to the end. Like the opening round at Silverstone, United Autosports celebrates wins in both LMP2 and LMP3 classes.

The race ebbed and flowed, as LMP3 races tend to do, and the early bets were on*Duqueine Engineering with the Norma - the M30 once again proving it has the pace to fight with the Ligiers. With 90 minutes to go, the #7 Norma spun and was unable to rejoin under its own power, leaving Ligier to sweep the top 6.

At the time of writing, the results are provisional. The first and second placed cars are under investigation for speeding under FCY.


Photo: ELMS

Ferrari took a dominant 1-2 in the GTE class as #55 Spirit of the Race won by almost 20 seconds over JMW. Ferrari were only robbed of a 1-2-3 in class by*Nicki Thiim, piloting the TF Sport Aston Martin. The podium was perhaps a surprise to the championship leading TF Sport crew, as Salih Yoluc complained that the unfavourable BoP crippled the Aston Martins.

At the time of writing, the results are provisional. The third placed car is under investigation for speeding under FCY.

Provisional Results
Report by Dave Ellis / theRacingLine.net

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As usual, comments welcome!

[Akrapovic]

United Autosports have lost their LMP3 class win from the 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring after 25 seconds were added to their race time for FCY violations. The penalty drops them to second, 23 seconds behind the #11 Eurointernational Ligier, who take their first win of the season.

Numerous cars were investigated for speeding during Full Course Yellow, but only the #2 was found guilty. United Autosports still lead the championship, but on equal points with the Ultimate car.

That's two penalties they got in the closing stages.

[gert]

Nice report, Akrapovic!

Good to see the SMP Dallara as competitive as it was. Is AF Corse running the car or are they doing that in-house?
Not sure why they had a short first stop. Was that a problem with not all the fuel going in, or was that a tactical choice?
Even with the extra stop they now had to do, they looked like real (podium) contenders until a technical issue at one of their lasts stops.

This was not High Class Racing's best race: how many penalties did they get? At least they got technical problems (at least twice in the garage) when they were far back anyway and not when they were in contention.

I'd love to see a Dallara win this season too.

[Damian Baldi]

It was a great race to watch. The Oreca was faster but their speed wasn't as constant as the Ligier. There has been very good fights for the lead, and for 3rd place.

The Dallara seems to be very close of the leaders, but I think SMP need a bit more or knowledge of the car.

[bentley speed 8]

Great race as always. Lead battles up until the last minute and very few yellows throughout.