ELMS: Le Castellet last race ahead of Le Mans

ELMS

May 2

15 of the 16 LMP2 cars entered for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans will participate to the 4 Hours of Le Castellet this weekend.

It will be their final race ahead of the 92nd running of the world’s most famous race. Table 1 points those 15 elected teams (LM in last column) among the 22 cars entered in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) this season, including reigning LMP2 champions Algarve Pro Racing, and LMP2 Pro/Am Champions AF Corse, as well as the winners of the Asian Le Mans Series, the Crowdstrike Racing by APR Oreca-Gibson.

Table 1: Le Mans entries within 4 Hours of Le Castellet LMP2 entry list

The LMP2 favorites

Based on Barcelona’s race, Algarve PRO Racing, COOL Racing and United Autosports among the favorites for overal winning.

Lorenzo Fluxa, Ritomo Miyata and Malthe Jakobsen with #37 COOL Racing ORECA 07 Gibson will look to renew the team’s first victory in the 2024 season-opening European Le Mans Series race at Barcelona.

After taking the lead during the second stint, last year champion Algarve Pro Racing lost it to #25 COOL Racing thanks to a faster pit stop from the Swiss team. Kaiser and Caldwell (#25) ended second and will look for their revenge at Le Castellet.

Benjamin Hanley who started from pole at Barcelona in #22 United Autosports Oreca will look to renew the performance during qualifying as well as during the race before heading to Le Mans where he’ll share #23 with Ben Keating and Felipe Albuquerque.

Defending champion LMP2 Pro/Am going for a second win this season.

Defending Team Champion #83 AF Corse with Francois Perrodo, Alessio Rovera and Matthieu Vaxivière clinched LMP2 Pro-Am class victory at Barcelona.

Team Virage wins LMP3

Gillian Henrion, Julien Gerbi and Bernardo Pinheiro lead 114 laps of the 131 covered in Team Virage #8 Ligier JS P320 Nissan at Barcelona and will look to celebrate the team’s second ELMS victory in LMP3 class.

The Iron Dames revenge in LMGT3

Sad end for Michelle Gatting who had to stop at the pit exit after taking over from Sarah Bovy and Rahel Frey who did dominate the LMGT3 class. The Iron Dames are looking for their first podium this season at least and preferably a victory at Le Castellet.

The Ferrari 296 GT3 appeared quite strong at Barcelona but Johnny Laursen, Conrad Laursen and Nicklas Nielsen who won the first LMGT3 race in ELMS with #50 Formula Racing know they were not able to compete with the Iron Dames and their Porsche 911 under normal race circumstances.

CLICK HERE for the race results of the 4 Hours of Barcelona.