Prema trio makes it two out of two
EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES IMOLA (ITA) 15 MAY ROUND 2/6
Lorenzo Colombo, Louis Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg took Prema Racing’s second European Le Mans Series victory in as many starts by winning at Imola.
While their maiden win at the Paul Ricard opener was the result of a controlled performance, Sunday’s at a scorching hot Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari could not be more different. Colombo, still filling in for the injured Juan Manuel Correa, started the Prema ORECA third but took advantage of a partially empty front row as second-placed TDS Racing was condemned to a pitlane start. On the opening lap, the young Italian made quick work of polesitter Francois Perrodo to take the lead, but was later deemed to have not respected the start formation.
This resulted in a drivethrough penalty.
In an unusual sequence of events, that penalty arguably achieved the opposite of the desired effect as Colombo made his trip down pitlane while his LMP2 rivals came in to make their scheduled stops. When he returned to the pits a lap later for his own pitstop, a full-course yellow had been called for a collision between GTE runners Michael Fassbender and Pierre Ehret. This effectively gave Prema a free stop and resulted in a gap of 20 seconds to the second-placed Cool Racing ORECA of Niklas Kruetten.
Sadly for Colombo, it then emerged that he had made another error by crossing the white line at pit exit when he rejoined the track after serving his drivethrough penalty. This resulted in a second enforced trip to the pits. This time, Kruetten was able to pick up the lead.
Charging, aggressive stints from Habsburg and then Deletraz went some way towards repairing the damage, but it seemed like Cool had the race under control after Yifei Ye had secured the lead with a pass on Panis Racing’s Job van Uitert at Rivazza. That was until a late full-course yellow unexpectedly opened the door back up for Prema. Deletraz had not yet made his final stop and so was able to come in under yellow, saving him heaps of time. Deletraz maintained the lead to win, with Tom Gamble, Phil Hanson and Duncan Tappy second in their United Autosports ORECA ahead of Cool trio Ye, Kruetten and Nicolas Lapierre. Racing Team Turkey took its second consecutive LMP2 Pro-am win with Jack Aitken, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc by finishing seventh overall.
In the LMP3 class, United took a commanding class victory, with the Ligier of Kay van Berlo and Andrew Bentley assuming the lead in the second hour before going on to finish a lap clear of Cool Ligier trio Antoine Doquin, Jean-ludovic Foubert and Nicolas Maulini. The Swiss squad recorded a double podium with its sister Ligier headlined by Danish youngster Malthe Jakobsen inheriting third after a late issue for Inter Europol Competition.
Aston Martin recorded a 1-2 in the GTE class with the two Oman Racing with TF Sport entries. The victory went to Marco Sorensen, Ahmad Al Harthy and Sam De Haan, who converted pole to victory with an impressive run by outpacing the sister car driven by Jonny Adam, Henrique
Chaves and John Hartshorne. Spirit of Race completed the podium after Kessel Racing’s similar Ferrari was disqualified following post-race scrutineering.