It was close racing in the classes using Dunlop tyres in the European Le Mans Series race today at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. Jota Sport emerged as overall race winners in the open tyre competition class while Formula Racing and AF Corse took the GT class victories. In the LMP2 class teams used both soft and medium options while the LM GTE class saw both medium and hard compounds on track alongside the single specification GTC tyre.

Jota Sport (Gibson) converted its third consecutive Red Bull Ring pole position into a win adding maximum points to the weekend tally, catapulting the British squad to the top of the Series standings. Thiriet by TDS Racing vied with Jota for the lead, Jota losing out with several safety car periods compressing gaps built and TDS missing out on the top spot with a drive through penalty for a pit-stop infringement in their Oreca. TDS emerged from the pit-lane after taking the penalty just behind Jota with only a few minutes remaining but a spin extended the gap, ultimately separating the pair by 27 seconds at the chequered flag.

Eurasia Motorsport (Oreca) held the lead for 16 of the 151 laps during the race having taken a different strategy by taking a pit-stop during an early safety car period but pace saw them drop down the order and finish in eighth. Dunlop’s LMP2 teams adopted a mixture of strategies using both soft and medium tyres and single, double and triple stinting.

In LM GTE, three F458 Italia Ferraris took the podium slots separated by a mere 1.519 seconds with ultra-competitive racing for the four-hour endurance event. All eight cars in the class were leaders at some point during the race with the victorious Formula Racing only taking the lead on the last lap. AF Corse’s #55 car led the most laps during the race despite starting from the back of the grid for a fuel infringement in qualifying. JMW Motorsport led the race on four different occasions through the race. The majority of teams used the medium option tyre with just one team opting for a combination of medium and hard options.

GTC’s podium was occupied by teams fielding three different marques. The #62 AF Corse Ferrari repeated its Imola win and was followed across the line by the BMW of TDS Racing and the Aston Martin of Massive Motorsport.

Mike McGregor, Manager Race Support, Design & Development
“It’s been a fantastic race. It’s a testament to the European Le Mans Series that we can have such exciting endurance racing. It was a really strong performances from Jota and the championship is very close going to the next round at Paul Ricard. LM GTE having three cars crossing the line separated by only 1.5 seconds and not knowing the top three order until the last moment is great. Also the mixture of brands on the GTC podium is good too and we have received great driver feedback again on the tyre performance across the board having used every dry weather specification available in all three classes.”