Britain’s greatest Olympic hero Sir Chris Hoy and 18 year old Charlie Robertson combined to make history at the opening round of the 2015 European Le Mans Series at Silverstone today. The Scottish pairing took a class win in the new LMP3 class aboard an equally brand new Ginetta-Nissan.

The Nissan NISMO V8 engined car was one of five in the new class, all built at Ginetta’s Garforth, Yorkshire factory and only one of which had turned a wheel before the weekend’s action.

The #3 car was never headed in the class after a fabulous early race drive from Robertson, the young Scot a graduate of Ginetta’s hugely successful career ladder took the car from 31st position on the grid to lead the class within 20 minutes, even briefly getting into the overall top 10 on pace.

Driving through the middle part of the race Hoy lapped quickly and consistently throughout, maintained the lead and handed the car back to Robertson still with an 80 second advantage.

It was another huge step forward for the Ginetta-Nissan, the Yorkshire built cars going from concept to racing reality in less than nine months, the car testing for the very first time just three weeks ago.

Sir Chris Hoy: “The real achievement here is from Team LNT and Ginetta. To give us a car capable of doing this in such a short time makes me very proud to be part of the effort. And to hear the National Anthem on a podium again was a real moment, not something I thought I’d get to do again!”

Charlie Robertson: “It’s been an amazing few weeks, from testing the car for the first time, to pole position and then this! It hasn’t really sunk in but it does make me feel that we can go forward and launch a Championship effort. That’s the real reward for everyone’s hard work in getting us here.”