United Beats APR in Rain-Affected 4H Algarve

Oliver Jarvis completed a late-race overtake on Algarve Pro Racing’s Alex Lynn to take victory in a rain-affected 4 Hours of Algarve.

Jarvis, who shared the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson with Marino Sato and Phil Hanson, crossed the line just 0.808 seconds ahead of Lynn’s No. 25 car to claim the Anglo-American squad’s second win of the season.

The win came after Jarvis overtook Lynn for the lead of the race with eleven minutes remaining, moving up the inside of his compatriot in traffic at the Turn 6 hairpin before sweeping around the outside at Turn 7 to complete the pass.

Jarvis had initially held a lead of some 20 seconds over Lynn approaching the round of final stops, only for his advantage to vanish when Wyatt Brichacek brought the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier JS P320 Nissan to a halt on track engulfed in flames.

A significantly slower final fuel stop under the subsequent safety car then dropped Jarvis back to fifth while Lynn led, only for the No. 22 United machine to gain several positions during an incident at the restart.

Neel Jani’s No. 30 Duqueine Team Oreca was hit from behind by the No. 55 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of David Perel and spun round, with Jarvis slipping through and up into second place in the chaos that followed.

Jarvis then chased down the No. 25 machine for the remaining 30 minutes of the race before passing it for the win, with Lynn, Kyffin Simpson and James Allen finishing second.

The victory saw United’s No. 22 crew move up into second place in the LMP2 drivers’ standings with 75 points, while Lynn, Simpson and Allen hold a 20-point advantage going into Sunday’s four-hour decider with 26 points still up for grabs.

The No. 25 car does clinch the ELMS’ overall drivers trophy with a race to spare, as Friday’s outcome puts them 40 points clear of the Racing Team Turkey LMP2 Pro-Am trio of Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Louis Deletraz.

Panis Racing’s No. 65 Oreca, driven by Manuel Maldonado, Tijmen van der Helm and Job van Uitert completed the overall podium ahead of the No. 47 Cool Racing Oreca while Duqueine Team completed the overall top five.

In LMP2 Pro-Am, Malthe Jakobsen recovered from late-race contact to storm back to a class victory, aided by a late-race penalty for Nielsen Racing’s Mathias Beche.

Jakobsen, who shared the No. 37 Cool Racing Oreca with Alexandre Coigny and Nicolas Lapierre, led at the final restart before being overtaken by AF Corse driver Matthieu Vaxiviere.

With just over twenty minutes to go, the Danish youngster was tagged in the rear by a spinning Tristan Vautier, causing him to loop round.

While Jakobsen set off in pursuit, Vaxiviere’s No. 83 Oreca came under pressure from the No. 24 machine driven by Beche.

The two drivers fought a contact-heavy battle as Jakobsen closed in, with Beche eventually managing to find a way past Vaxiviere after contact at Turn 4 allowed the Nielsen driver to pass the Frenchman at Turn 5.

A charging Jakobsen subsequently also overtook Vaxiviere and was then close enough behind to inherit the lead when Beche was given a ten-second penalty for the contact with the No. 83 car, going on to win.

Beche, Ben Hanley and Rodrigo Sales finished second with Vaxiviere, Ben Barnicoat and Francois Perrodo completing the podium.

By finishing third, Vaxiviere and Perrodo narrowly assumed the lead of the LMP2 Pro-Am drivers’ standings after a challenging race for Racing Team Turkey.

The TF Sport-run No. 34 Oreca came into the event with a small points lead, but suffered a significant setback when Bronze-rated Yoluc spun into the gravel at Turn 8 in the opening hour.

Yoluc lost control of the car during one of several rain showers that struck the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve throughout the course of the race, which made tire strategy one of the key aspects of the first of this weekend’s four-hour races.

The No. 34 machine went two laps down as it was freed from the gravel, eventually recovering to sixth in class and 13th overall.

The No. 83 crew now leads the standings with 85 points, while Yoluc, Deletraz and Eastwood’s 82 points results in a drop to third – one point behind Cool Racing’s No. 37 crew.

Cool Racing Clinches LMP3 Title, Ried Ties Griffin’s GTE Record

The Cool Racing trio of Adrien Chila, Alejandro Garcia and Marcos Siebert won the LMP3 title with a race to spare by finishing fourth in class.

The No. 17 Ligier JS P320 Nissan came into the Portimao doubleheader with a 46-point advantage over the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition car, which needed a victory on Friday to keep its narrow championship hopes alive.

When the Polish squad then retired from the race after its car caught fire in the final hour, it left the way clear for Cool Racing to clinch a second consecutive LMP3 title.

The class win in LMP3, meanwhile, went to the No. 12 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Duqueine D08 Nissan of Oscar Tunjo, Torsten Kratz and Leo Weiss.

In GTE, Christian Ried secured a landmark eleventh ELMS class victory aboard the No. 77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19, matching a previous record set by Matt Griffin.

Ried, along with co-drivers Giammarco Levorato and Julien Andlauer, came out on top when Andlauer prevailed in a hard-fought battle with the No. 16 sister car of Alessio Picariello in the final hour.

Picariello, Ryan Hardwick and Zach Robichon finished second, with the No. 60 Iron Lynx Porsche completing the podium.

RESULTS: 4 Hours of Algarve