United Dominates Rain-Delayed 4H Portimao; APR Takes Title

United Autosports drivers Oliver Jarvis, Phil Hanson and Marino Sato dominated a rain-delayed European Le Mans Series season finale at Portimao but it was Algarve Pro Racing’s Alex Lynn, James Allen and Kyffin Simpson who secured the LMP2 title.

A second-place finish in Sunday’s four-hour contest was enough for the drivers of the No. 25 Oreca 07 Gibson to deliver Portugal-based Algarve Pro’s first overall ELMS title on home ground.

Lynn finished 5.785 seconds behind Jarvis, after gaining three positions in a hectic moment during the final hour when IDEC Sport’s Paul-Loup Chatin spun into the gravel at Turn 8 and Neel Jani turned Job van Uitert around at the preceding corner.

That meant the Algarve Pro lineup won the LMP2 title by 13 points, although they were still five points clear of United before Lynn benefited from the simultaneous incidents.

United’s No. 22 Oreca led throughout after Hanson, who started second on the grid, pounced on IDEC Sport’s pole-sitter Paul Lafargue into Turn 3 when green flag racing started after an hour under safety car and red flag conditions due to heavy rain.

The four-hour season finale was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. local time but the wet and windy conditions prompted race control to delay the start by 90 minutes.

When it did get underway, a reconnaissance lap behind the safety car led to a red flag that lasted 45 minutes.

But as the dark rainclouds started to disperse, the safety car got the field going again and released it for racing on a wet track with three hours left on the clock.

After dispatching Lafargue, Hanson charged into a half-minute lead over Rene Binder in the Duqueine Team Oreca before handing over the No. 22 Oreca to Sato just before a Full Course Yellow for debris on the front straight.

Duqueine dropped to fourth after the opening round of stops, while Sato’s lead went out to more than a minute over the Panis Racing and Algarve Pro machines.

A charging middle stint from Nico Pino saw Duqueine return to second and reduce the lead gap to 40 seconds before a safety car period bunched up the field.

The first incident-related safety car was caused by a crash for Nelson Piquet Jr whose United Oreca snapped out of control at Craig Jones corner and slid into the tire barrier.

Jarvis took over the leading No. 22 United car for the final hour, when the LMP2 cars transitioned to slicks. The Brit kept Jani, in for Pino, at arm’s length until the Swiss driver lost second in the pits before tipping van Uitert into a spin.

With Jani taking a drive-through penalty, Lynn moved up to second but came under pressure from a recovering van Uitert. The Panis Racing driver attacked Lynn at the Torre Vip hairpin with one minute to go, but came off worse and spun around.

Van Uitert, Manuel Maldonado and Tijmen van der Helm completed the overall podium as the LMP2 Pro-Am winning AF Corse Oreca took fourth.

Ben Barnicoat, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Francois Perrodo sealed the Pro-Am title with AF Corse, protecting their two-point lead heading into the final round.

Malthe Jakobsen could have snatched the championship for Cool Racing, but Barnicoat held firm in the closing stint and held off the Danish driver by 0.6 seconds.

Cool Racing’s No. 17 crew secured the LMP3 title in Friday’s penultimate round of the campaign.

Class honors in the season finale went to the Eurointernational Ligier JS P320 Nissan driven by Matthew Richard Bell and Adam Ali, who brought the car to the line.

Proton Wins to Secure Final GTE Title

The Proton Competition crew of Alessio Picariello, Zacharie Robichon and Ryan Hardwick won the final GTE title in ELMS before the category gets replaced by GT3 next season.

The drivers of the No. 16 Porsche 911 RSR-19 were the points leaders heading into Sunday’s race and maintained that position with their second win of the year.

Picariello held off Ulysse de Pauw in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo at the end, while the No. 77 Proton lineup completed the podium.

Hardwick led the opening 40 minutes after the race went green but was overtaken by Spirit of Race Ferrari driver Duncan Cameron around the outside at Turn 1.

Cameron’s co-driver Matt Griffin then led through the middle stint, with Robichon keeping around five seconds behind.

The order shuffled at the final round of pit stops as Spirit of Race dropped to sixth and Proton’s No. 16 Porsche returned to the lead. Proton initially had a one-two result on the cards but de Pauw overtook Julien Andlauer to split the Porsches.

RESULTS: 4H Portimao