Race report
European Le Mans Spa
Spa ELMS: WRT wins to seal LMP2 title with a round to spare
Team WRT wrapped up the 2021 European Le Mans Series title after Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz clinched their third victory of the season at Spa on Sunday.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Sep 20, 2021, 8:26 AM
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Arriving into the penultimate round of the season, the #41 WRT crew held an 11-point advantage over their nearest rivals Roman Rusinov, Nyck de Vries and Franco Colapinto in the #26 G-Drive Aurus.
But with Rusinov having to retire the car early after being spun by the #34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca driven by Salih Yoluc at the opening turn, victory was sufficient for the WRT trio to put the title mathematically beyond reach for its rivals.
Formula 1 race winner Kubica took the start in the #41 WRT Oreca from third on the grid and was immediately up to second when Phil Hanson’s #22 United Autosports car suffered a puncture in the opening lap chaos.
When Yoluc went off at the gravel at Turn 5 and brought out the first FCY just 35 minutes into the race, the leading LMP2 crews took advantage of the situation to complete their pitstops.
WRT elected to keep Kubica in the car for a second stint, which allowed the Polish driver to leapfrog the polesitting #37 Cool Racing Oreca now driven by Alexandre Coigny.
There was another lead change in the second round of pitstops, with the #32 United Autosports Oreca that had started last following a heavy crash for Nico Jamin in qualifying getting a jump on the erstwhile leading WRT.
But Yifei, now at the wheel of the #41 Oreca, was able to pass Manuel Maldonado going into Les Combes to put his team back in the lead of the race with just over two hours to run.
From there on the WRT crew cruised to the chequered flag, with Deletraz bringing the car home five seconds clear of the #30 Duqueine Oreca after an off for Christophe Cresp in the #5 MV2S Ligier JS P320 brought out a late FCY.
Having bagged 25 points in the race, Kubica, Yifei and Deletraz - who were cruelly robbed off a victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours last month - enjoy an unassailable 36-point lead heading into the final round of the season at Portimao in October.
The result further underlined the credentials of Belgian squad WRT in its first season in prototype machinery, after its full season FIA World Endurance Championship entry driven by Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi claimed the LMP2 class win at Le Mans in the team’s first appearance at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Behind the #41 crew, Tristan Gommendy, Memo Rojas and Rene Binder finished second at Spa in the #30 Duqueine entry after Gommendy passed both Job van Uitert in the #32 United entry and James Allen’s #65 Panis Racing Oreca during his stint.
The final spot on the podium went to Allen, Will Stevens and Julien Canal's Panis entry.
The LMP2 Pro-Am battle is yet to be decided after Coigny, Milesi and Nicolas Lapierre finished fourth overall, three spots ahead of the class-leading #25 G-Drive Aurus, piloted at Spa by Rui Andrade, John Falb and Gustavo Menezes.
LMP3 honours went to Laurents Hoerr and Mathieu de Barbuat, the duo clinching a third consecutive class win for the #4 DKR Engineering squad to close the gap to #19 Cool Racing trio Matt Bell, Niklas Kruetten and Nicolas Maulini to just five points.
AF Corse took victory in the GTE class, with Alessio Rovera, Francois Perrodo and Emmanuel Collard beating the similar Ferrari of points leaders Miguel Molina, Rino Mastronardi and Matteo Cressoni (Iron Lynx).
Race results:
Cla # Driver Car Gap 1 41 Robert Kubica
Louis Deletraz
Ye Yifei
Oreca 07 2 30 Tristan Gommendy
Rene Binder
Memo Rojas
Oreca 07 5.318 3 65 Julien Canal
Will Stevens
James Allen
Oreca 07 19.544 4 37 Alexandre Coigny
Nicolas Lapierre
Charles Milesi
Oreca 07 23.198 5 32 Job Van Uitert
Nico Jamin
Manuel Maldonado
Oreca 07 26.236 6 28 Paul Lafargue
Paul-Loup Chatin
Patrick Pilet
Oreca 07 1'07.468 7 25 John Falb
Rui Andrade
Gustavo Menezes
Aurus 01 1'24.134 8 22 Philip Hanson
Jonathan Aberdein
Tom Gamble
Oreca 07 1'33.014 9 35 Francesco Dracone
Sergio Campana
Markus Pommer
Oreca 07 1 Lap 10 29 Matthieu Lahaye
Jean Baptiste Lahaye
Oreca 07 1 Lap 11 4 Laurents Hörr
Mathieu de
Duqueine M30 - D08 3 Laps 12 19 Nicolas Maulini
Matthew Bell
Niklas Krütten
Ligier JS P320 3 Laps 13 2 Wayne Boyd
Robert Wheldon
Edouard Cauhaupe
Ligier JS P320 3 Laps 14 8 Eric Trouillet
Sebastien Page
David Droux
Ligier JS P320 4 Laps 15 20 Rob Hodes
Garett Grist
Charles Crews
Ligier JS P320 4 Laps 16 18 Bressan Alessandro
Andreas Laskaratos
Damiano Fioravanti
Ligier JS P320 4 Laps 17 9 Matthias Kaiser
Rory Penttinen
Ligier JS P320 5 Laps 18 3 Jim McGuire
Duncan Tappy
Andrew Bentley
Ligier JS P320 5 Laps 19 88 François Perrodo
Emmanuel Collard
Alessio Rovera
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 6 Laps 20 80 Matteo Cressoni
Rino Mastronardi
Miguel Molina
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 6 Laps 21 6 Nick Adcock
Austin McCusker
Max Koebolt
Ligier JS P320 6 Laps 22 83 Rahel Frey
Sarah Bovy
Michelle Gatting
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 6 Laps 23 93 Michael Fassbender
Felipe Fernández Laser
Richard Lietz
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 6 Laps 24 60 Claudio Schiavoni
Giorgio Sernagiotto
Paolo Ruberti
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 6 Laps 25 66 Jody Fannin
Andrea Fontana
Rodrigo Sales
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 7 Laps 26 77 Christian Ried
Cooper MacNeil
Matt Campbell
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 7 Laps 27 95 John Hartshorne
Ross Gunn
Ollie Hancock
Aston Martin Vantage AMR 8 Laps 28 7 Tony Wells
Colin Noble Jr.
Ligier JS P320 8 Laps 29 11 Andrea Dromedari
Jacopo Baratto
Joey Alders
Ligier JS P320 9 Laps 5 Cresp Christophe
Fabien Lavergne
Adrien Chila
Ligier JS P320 8 Laps 14 Mattia Pasini
Mateusz Kaprzyk
Nicolas Pino
Ligier JS P320 21 Laps 13 Martin Hippe
Ugo De
Aidan Read
Ligier JS P320 52 Laps 24 Diego Menchaca
Ferdinand Habsburg
Richard Bradley
Oreca 07 80 Laps 15 Mike Benham
Alex Kapadia
Malthe Jakobsen
Ligier JS P320 80 Laps 55 Duncan Cameron
Matthew Griffin
David Perel
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO 81 Laps 34 Salih Yoluc
Charles Eastwood
Harry Tincknell
Oreca 07 86 Laps 26 Roman Rusinov
Franco Colapinto
Nyck de Vries
Aurus 01 98 Laps View full results
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