After an eventful four-hour European Le Mans Series (ELMS) race in Italy, Jota Sport claimed the win after missing out in round one despite leading for the majority of the Silverstone race. Filipe Albuquerque drove Jota’s Zytek Z11SN Nissan to pole position ahead of Thiriet by TDS Racing and returned-to-Dunlop Signatech Alpine.

Simon Dolan began the race for Jota, leading for the first hour before slipping down the order for a time. Signatech was next to lead the pack until an electronic problem delayed the car during a routine pit-stop with the car struggling to restart. Signatech pulled the lead back but a safety car interrupted the squad’s pit-stop strategy and ultimately the team finished third. In the final hour, from the lead, Thiriet by TDS had their win hopes snatched away by a shattered brake disc handing the baton back to Jota.

With the top three, Jota, Newblood by Morand Racing and Signatech separated by just four seconds with 30 minutes of racing remaining, Klien for Morand managed to overtake Dolan in the Jota. Signatech then needed to refuel while drama stuck with four minutes left on the clock when Morand suffered from an engine problem from which they could only recover to cross the line in seventh. Simon Dolan crossed the line for Jota to claim a well-deserved victory. Jota’s Imola clean sweep included taking the fastest race lap. All four teams that led today’s race chose to compete on Dunlop tyres.

Mike McGregor, Dunlop Motorsport Engineer: “None of our cars ran the same race strategy. The soft and medium options that were available here proved to be very versatile which bodes well for the Le Mans 24 Hours in four weeks. Teams used both options, both on their own and in a split strategy. The medium compound was triple stinted and the soft compound comfortably double stinted on a track of 39 °C and showed they were capable of great pace consistently. Now we will work with the data that we have gathered so that we can help our teams find the right strategy for each of them for Le Mans.”