European Le Mans Series Latest

United Autosports On ELMS Pole At Circuit Paul Ricard (18.07.20)

Pole position for the opening round of the 2020 European Le Mans Series went to the #22 United Autosports ORECA 07 piloted by Filipe Albuquerque in the car he shares with Phil Hanson. Lining up alongside the #22 car will be the #26 G-Drive Racing Auris 01 in which Nyck De Vries lapped in 1:38.505.

Completing the overall top three was the sister United Autosports entry, the #32, in which Alex Brundle put in a 1:38.736.

No sooner had the LMP3 session got underway than the #7 Nielsen Racing entry driven by Colin Noble stopped on the circuit at Turn 3. Noble got the Duqueine M30 underway and the session continued.

At the half-way point, Laurents Horr in the #4 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30-D08 topped the time-sheets with a 1:48.994 and immediately improved to 1:48.399. As the session drew to a close and with a yellow flag out, it was Wayne Boyd on the class pole with a 1:48.315. The #4 DKR Engineering entry was second quickest and the #15 RLR MSport Ligier JS P320, driven by Malthe Jacobsen, was third.

“Wayne did a fantastic job,” said United Autosports teammate Tom Gamble. “We’ve shown really good pace in testing and we just needed to deliver in qualifying. He did a superb job so it’s made my job a lot easier for tomorrow so I’m really happy with that!”.

Pole position in the LM GTE category went to the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari F488 GTE in which Nicola Cadei lapped in 1:51.729 with seconds remaining in the 10-minute session. Second quickest, with a 1:51.745, was the #98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage AMR driven by Ross Gunn.

Completing the top three in the category was the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Aaron Scott, Duncan Cameron and, on qualifying duty, Matt Griffin who put in a 1:51.780.

Kessel Racing teammate David Perel was delighted at the pole position.

“It was an incredible job by Nicky@ said Perel. “He actually got a track limits (penalty) on the first run which put us under huge pressure but to pull out a lap – it was so close at the end! Yesterday we were struggling a bit but it was so impressive by Nicky.”