Habsburg charge sets up yet another Prema success
EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES BARCELONA (ESP) 28 AUGUST ROUND 4/6
Lorenzo Colombo, Louis Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg took Prema Racing’s third European Le Mans Series victory in four races at the 4 Hours of Barcelona.
The Italian squad started out in a relatively low-key seventh place, but a particularly strong opening stint from Habsburg meant its ORECA quickly rose up through the field. By the time an early safety car was called for a pair of opening-lap skirmishes involving GTE and LMP3 machinery, the Austrian was already up to fourth behind Panis Racing’s polesitter Julien Canal, Racing Team Turkey’s Salih Yoluc and
Cool Racing youngster Niklas Kruetten.
Both Kruetten and Habsburg made short work of gentleman driver Yoluc following the restart, with Habsburg making a move on the German less than 10 minutes later. Before the opening hour had passed, Habsburg had caught up with Canal. The Frenchman had led the race from the start but was surpassed with a strong run out of Turn 3, Habsburg seizing the lead and not looking back.
After Habsburg and Colombo had completed their driving time, it was up to Deletraz to take the chequered flag, leading the Panis ORECA of Canal, Nico Jamin and Job van Uitert home by 23 seconds.
The French squad endured a challenging run, incurring a pair of penalties for a start infringement and an additional 10s postrace penalty for a pitstop infraction. Cool trio Kruetten, Yifei Ye and Nicolas Lapierre completed the podium, with Duncan Tappy, Tom Gamble and Phil Hanson coming home in fourth place for United Autosports.
Monza winner IDEC Sport endured a race to forget. The French squad put in a strong showing in the early stages after starting fourth and was a consistent top-six presence in the opening hour. But its day took a turn midway through the second hour when Paul Lafargue made a mistake under braking at Turn 1 and smacked his car into the wall on driver’s left, coming to a rest in the gravel. The team continued on, but finished two laps down.
Prema trio Habsburg, Colombo and Deletraz now enjoy a 22-point buffer over van Uitert, Canal and Jamin with two races to go at Spa and Portimao. The Franco-dutch trio have so far this season been Prema’s main opponents, but are yet to win a race.
LMP3 victor Inter Europol Competition built on its momentum after winning the previous round at Monza. Nico Pino, Guilherme Oliveira and Charles Crews started their Ligier from second place behind Cool Racing, but Crews captured the lead on lap one and remained largely dominant throughout. Even a late penalty for track-limit infringements could not stop the trio, who finished five seconds clear of DKR Engineering’s sole Duqueine on the grid.
A sturdy final-hour pass from Gianmaria Bruni on Spirit of Race’s David Perel gave Porsche team Proton Competition its second consecutive class win in GTE, with Bruni, Lorenzo Ferrari and Christian Ried going on to victory over the Ferrari of Perel, Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin.