Deletraz, Habsburg Champions as Prema Wins at Portimao

Prema drivers Ferdinand Habsburg and Louis Deletraz claimed the European Le Mans Series title by winning the 4 Hours of Portimao alongside Juan Manuel Correa.

The drivers of the No. 9 Oreca 07 Gibson shrugged off the early opposition from Inter Europol Competition and TDS Racing x Vaillante to claim Prema’s fourth victory out of six races in the Italian team’s maiden ELMS campaign.

Deletraz crossed the finish line 49.262 seconds clear of Job van Uitert who shared the second-placed Panis Racing Oreca with Nico Jamin and Julien Canal.

The Panis drivers needed to win and rely on Prema finishing outside the top 10 in the 16-car LMP2 class to cause a huge championship upset.

But a clean race from Prema prevented that from happening, with Deletraz successfully defending his 2021 title with Team WRT and Habsburg becoming a first-time series champion.

Correa, meanwhile, chalked up his first ELMS victory after joining the No. 9 crew from the penultimate round.

Cool Racing’s Nicolas Lapierre, Yifei Ye and Niklas Kruetten completed the podium, with Inter Europol Competition drivers Pietro Fittipaldi, Fabio Scherer and David Heinemeier Hansson taking fourth.

Inter Europol led the early stages of the race courtesy of a strong start from Fittipaldi, who charged through from seventh on the grid in damp conditions that caused lots of shuffling in the LMP2 field.

Correa initially led after getting past pole-sitter Salih Yoluc, who spun on the formation lap, but was overtaken by Fittipaldi into the Torre Vip hairpin around 20 minutes in.

Fittipaldi extended Inter Europol’s lead to five seconds as Correa dropped to third when Tijmen van der Helm accelerated TDS Racing’s Oreca past on the main straight.

Inter Europol then lost ground during Heinemeier Hansson’s stint, with Mathias Beche moving Pro-Am competitor TDS into the overall lead.

Beche remained ahead of Habsburg, who was in for Correa, until just after the halfway mark when the order switched in the pits as TDS switched to wets shortly before one of six Full Course Yellow periods occurred.

Several bouts of light rainfall throughout the afternoon generated a slippery track surface at times that prompted some teams to consider switching compounds.

TDS Racing ended up returning Beche to the pits when slicks emerged as the right choice, and the team ultimately fell out of contention when the Swiss driver tagged the LMP3-leading Inter Europol Ligier JS P320 Nissan and spun around at Turn 11.

By that stage, Prema was a minute clear of its nearest rival, which briefly became the United Autosports Oreca until it dropped two places in a round of pit stops under FCY and Phil Hanson spun whilst trying to make up the lost ground.

The main beneficiary from the pit sequence was Cool Racing, which jumped both United and Panis to take second. Panis moved back ahead of its fellow French team but was unable to do anything about Prema’s march to the checkered flag and the title.

Pro-Am honors went to Racing Team Turkey’s Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Jack Aitken, with Yoluc and Eastwood earning the title in the category for LMP2 lineups with a Bronze-rated driver.

Cool Racing Overturns Deficit for LMP3 Title

A disastrous race for Inter Europol Competition’s LMP3 points leaders resulted in the Cool Racing trio of Malthe Jakobsen, Maurice Smith and Mike Benham taking the class title.

The Cool Racing crew arrived in Portugal with a 19-point lead but that turned into a seven-point deficit after Sunday’s race.

Inter Europol’s race unraveled when Nico Pino had contact with Beche’s LMP2 Oreca, dropping the Polish team’s No. 13 Ligier out of the battle for victory.

It was still in the frame for the championship, however, considering it needed to finish sixth or better to remain ahead of Cool.

But any chance of that was ripped away in the final 12 minutes when Guilherme Oliveira was hit by John Hartshorne’s TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 as he struggled with steering issues coming out of a pit stop.

In the GTE class, Iron Lynx’s all-female driver lineup won in ELMS for the first time, but it was the Proton Competition Porsche crew of Christian Ried, Gianmaria Bruni and Lorenzo Ferrari that ultimately topped the championship table.

Sarah Bovy, Michelle Gatting and Doriane Pin dominated in their Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, which started from the front of the grid after Bovy became the first female ELMS pole-sitter on Saturday.

Pin crossed the line almost a minute and a half beyond Marco Sorensen, who shared the No. 95 TF Sport Aston Martin with Henrique Chaves and Ahmad Al Harthy.

Kessel Racing’s Mikkel Jensen, Frederik Schandorff and Takeshi Kimura completed the podium in their Ferrari.

Third would have been good enough for Jensen and Schandorff to grab the GTE title in the event that Proton finished no higher than seventh, however the No. 77 Porsche 911 RSR-19 ended up fifth to maintain its points advantage.

RESULTS: 4H Portimao