United Autosports Takes First Win of Season at Spa

Photo: United Autosports

United Autosports has claimed its first overall victory of the European Le Mans Series season following a controlling run by Phil Hanson, Duncan Tappy and Tom Gamble in Sunday’s 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Gamble took the No. 23 Oreca 07 Gibson to a 23.508-second win over the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Pietro Fittipaldi, who shared driving duties with Fabio Scherer and David Heinemeier Hansson.

It came despite the Anglo-American team having been handed a five-second penalty for overtaking the No. 65 Panis Racing Oreca at the start of the race.

Prema, meanwhile, nearly wrapped up the LMP2 title with a third place result for Louis Deletraz, Ferdinand Habsburg and the debuting Juan Manuel Correa.

Deletraz and Habsburg will enter next month’s season-ending 4 Hours of Portimao with a 24-point lead, with a maximum of 26 points available.

The Panis and pole-sitting No. 37 Cool Racing Orecas completed the top-five on Sunday.

The Swiss squad led early from pole with Yifei Ye although suffered two setbacks, including a punctured rear tire, while in the hands of team boss Nico Lapierre in the second hour after an intense battle with Scherer.

Will Stevens gave Racing Team Turkey the LMP2 Pro-Am class win in a photo finish with Alessio Rovera following a final corner move around the AF Corse Oreca.

Stevens, subbing for Jack Aitken, shared driving duties of the TF Sport-run entry with Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood and crossed the line just 0.042 seconds ahead of Rovera.

LMP3 honors went to the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Charlie Crews, Nico Pino and Guilherme Oliveira that has seen the Polish squad take over the championship lead.

Oliveira was 41 seconds ahead of the No. 4 DKR Engineering Duqueine D08 Nissan of Sebastian Alvarez at the checkered flag to give the team it’s third consecutive class victory.

The No. 17 Cool Racing Ligier, which entered the weekend as the points leaders, was the race’s first retirement due to rear-end damage to the Maurice Smith-driven car in the opening hour following contact.

Kessel Ferrari Spins, Wins in GTE

The No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Conrad Grunewald, Frederik Schandorff and Mikkel Jensen came out on top in the GTE ranks despite a dramatic early race spin.

Pole-sitter Grunewald lost control of the Car Guy-backed Prancing Horse at Raidillon, with the No. 83 Iron Dames Ferrari of Sarah Bovy narrowly missing the Bronze-rated American driver in the incident.

While Bovy took over the class lead, Peugeot factory driver Jensen hunted down and passed the all-female-driven Ferrari with 50 minutes to go.

Jensen finished 8 seconds ahead of Michele Gatting to give the Kessel its first victory of the season.

The No. 18 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Martin Rump, Alessio Picariello and Andrew Haryanto completed the class podium in third.

RESULTS: 4H Spa-Francorchamps

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John