European sportscar titles for both Jota Sport and Beechdean AMR as ELMS season ends

Two British crews celebrated success in last weekend’s European Le Mans Series finale, with Jota Sport and Beechdean AMR both claiming titles.

The G-drive-backed Jota team controlled the four-hour season finale at Estoril, with the crew of ex-f1 driver Giedo van der Garde and Brits Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell’s victory overturning a 13-point deficit to the TDS Racing ORECA team in the LMP2 championship.

TDS had stayed in the hunt until trouble hit at its second pitstop when Ryo Hirakawa suffered a lengthy delay for a technical issue and dropped down the field.

Tincknell, who also celebrated his first win with Ford’s FIA World Endurance Championship team recently, said: “What a two weeks it’s been. We had bad luck in both programmes but this shows that if you keep working hard and keep your belief then things can happen. Being ELMS champions has a nice ring to it.”

Ex-british GT title-winning team Beechdean AMR celebrated success in the GTE Class during its first full ELMS season. The team of Andrew Howard, Alex Macdowall and Darren Turner capitalised on disaster for rival squad JMW Motorsport to take the win and the title.

JMW’S trio of Rory Butcher, Rob Smith and Andrea Bertolini were leading until gearbox