United Autosports Converts Pole to 4H Aragon Victory

Marino Sato, Oliver Jarvis and Phil Hanson gave United Autosports its first European Le Mans Series victory of the season by winning the inaugural 4 Hours of Aragon.

After starting the race from pole position, the No. 22 Oreca 07 Gibson came through to win by a margin of 14.987 seconds over the No. 28 IDEC Sport machine of Paul Lafargue, Laurents Hoerr and Paul-Loup Chatin.

It marked the Anglo-American squad’s first victory of the season, returning to the top step of the podium for the first time since the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps last September.

Hanson led the race for the first 90 minutes, during which he had a lead of some six seconds slashed by a safety car in the closing minutes of the opening hour.

The intervention was triggered by a collision between GTE leader Johnny Laursen in the No. 50 Formula Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and Inter Europol Competition driver Rui Andrade, which eliminated both cars from the race.

Hanson’s co-driver Sato then fought his way back to the lead after dropping to third place upon taking the car over, only for the No. 22 car to fall back to fourth when Jarvis was installed for the final portion of the race.

As the race entered the final hour, the No. 28 IDEC Sport Oreca appeared to be in the best position to win after Chatin fought his way past Panis Racing’s Job van Uitert at Turn 1 with just under 45 minutes remaining.

However, a shorter final fuel stop for Jarvis (56 seconds compared to Chatin’s 67) swung momentum back in United’s favor and resulted in a lead of over six seconds for the No. 22 crew.

Jarvis extended his advantage in his run to the checkered flag, taking the victory ahead of the French crew while Algarve Pro Racing came through from last place on the grid to complete the podium.

The No. 25 Oreca, driven by James Allen, Kyffin Simpson and Alex Lynn, began the race from 42nd place after a brake issue in qualifying.

A strong opening stint from Allen saw the car run in the overall top ten after 25 minutes.

The Portuguese squad remained a podium threat throughout the race afterwards, briefly leading in the hands of Cadillac factory driver Lynn on rotation during the final round of pitstops.

Panis Racing finished the race in fourth place while the No. 83 AF Corse entry of Francois Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Alessio Rovera came home in fifth overall, picking up the Pro-Am class victory in the process.

The Italian squad brought an end to Racing Team Turkey’s undefeated streak that spanned the first two races of the season after the No. 34 crew ran into issues late in the race.

After leading by nearly ten seconds at the start of the final hour, Louis Deletraz was overtaken by Vaxiviere before the car failed to start during the final pitstop.

It then spent nearly twelve minutes in the garage before rejoining, with Deletraz, Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood initially finishing 20th overall and ninth in class.

However, the TF Sport-operated Oreca later dropped to 26th overall after two minutes were added to the team’s race time when stewards learned that the car’s engine was restarted using an external battery during the final pitstop.

Duqueine Team finished sixth of the No. 47 Cool Racing trio of Vlad Lomko, Reshad de Gerus and Jose Maria Lopez.

The Swiss squad encountered late drama when Lopez collided with the No. 37 sister car in the hands of Malthe Jakobsen at Turn 1 late in the closing hour, resulting in retirement for the Pro-Am crew.

Mathias Beche, Rodrigo Sales and Ben Hanley finished second in Pro-Am and eighth overall for Nielsen Racing, ahead of the No. 23 United Oreca driven by Garnet Patterson, Paul di Resta and Guy Smith.

Daniel Schneider, Andy Meyrick and Filipe Albuquerque rounded out the overall top ten aboard the No. 21 United entry.

Cool Racing, Kessel Take LMP3, GTE Class Wins

Cool Racing’s No. 17 Ligier JS P320 Nissan took class victory despite a late-race penalty for a pitstop infringement, while Kessel Racing came out on top in GTE.

Adrien Chila, Marcos Siebert and Alejandro Garcia had 20 seconds added to their race time after stewards deemed that the car was not grounded before refueling was started during an earlier stop.

The No. 17 crew crossed the line 24.140 seconds clear of the No. 12 WTM Racing by Rinaldi Duqueine D08 Nissan of Torsten Kratz, Leonard Weiss and Oscar Tunjo, leaving them with enough of a margin to claim a second win of the season.

The No. 35 Ultimate Ligier of Eric Trouillet, Matthieu Lahaye and Jean-Baptiste Lahaye completed the podium ahead of RLR M Sport’s No. 15 car and the No. 11 Eurointernational entry.

The Italian squad ran first in class during the early stages with a significant lead, but had their run curtailed when they, along with the polesitting No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier, were handed a 2 minute and 40-second stop and go penalty for disrespecting the pass-around procedure.

In GTE, Takeshi Kimura, Scott Huffaker and Davide Rigon delivered Kessel Racing its first win of the season aboard the No. 57 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

After winning the opening two races of the campaign, Proton Competition finished second, third and fourth with its three Porsche 911 RSR-19s.

Ryan Hardwick, Zach Robichon and Alessio Picariello finished second, while the No. 93 machine of Michael Fassbender, Michael Rump and Richard Lietz recovered from an early clash with an LMP2 runner to round out the class podium.

RESULTS: 4 Hours of Aragon (Amended)