Third round of the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) championship with qualifying of the 4 hours of Imola today. Bovy in LMGT3 and Roda in LMP2 Pro-Am scored their third consecutive pole.

Malthe Jakobsen with #37 COOL Racing did set the fastest lap in 1:41.186 during this morning Free Practice 1.

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.

Cool Racing, AF Corse, Team Virage and Formula Racing are the class winners of the first ELMS race at Barcelona.

The first ELMS qualifying practice of the new season saw Benjamin Hanley, Giorgio Roda, Manuel Espirito Santo and Sarah Bovy setting pole with their respective cars during the four class sessions this afternoon at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Louis Deletraz demonstrated his driving art this morning at Barcelona by setting the pace with #14 AO by TF Oreca 07 Gibson in 1:28.821 and being the only driver under the 1:29’’ mark during the first free practice.

Both days of the ELMS Official Test saw eight drivers with 7 teams lapping under 1m29’’ with Arthur Leclerc setting the Benchmark of the 4.657km Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in 1m28.254 with the #65 Panis Racing Oreca 07 - Gibson.

Maldonado’s strike from another perspective.

The LMGTE race was animated, mostly dominated by Proton Competition with two of the four prepared Porsche 911 RSR-19s finishing first and second.

With four leader changes in the last 22 laps, It is finally the #25 Algarve Pro Racing with Alexander Lynn, James Allen and K. Simpson that crossed checkered flag first as leading #28 IDEC Sport had to pit due to a puncture with 14 laps to go and Louis Deletraz with #34 Racing Team Turkey had to give up the lead four laps before the end as he was struggling for grip.

Jose Maria Lopez with 11 seconds to go before the end of the session clinched pole beating Chatin for 0.266 seconds in 1:44.253. The #47 trio Vladislav Lomko, Reshad De GERUS and Jose Maria Lopez will start from pole the 4 Hours of Le Castellet tomorrow at 11:30 am.

Cool Racing strikes the double in FP1 at Paul Ricard this morning with Lopez in #47 fastest in LMP2 and Jakobsen driving #37 in LMP2/AM. Nick Thiim was fastest in LMGTE with #44 Aston Martin.

Third victory of the season for Miguel Molina, Matteo Cressoni and Rino Mastronardi who dominated the race with their #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and secured the title as well as an invitation to the next 24 Hours of Le Mans. The battle with Proton Porsche #93 was intense during the last hour.

United Autosport #2 wins the race and the second invitation to the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans.

G-Drive #25 as well as John Falb and Rui Andrade clinch the new Pro/AM championships.

DKR Engineering #4 cross checkered class first in LMP3 but got a 65” penalty still clinching the championship title as well as Laurent Horr.

Cool Racing in LMP2, United Autosports in LMP3 and TF Sport in LMGTE are the pole sitters in the 3 class for the 4 Hours of Portimao tomorrow.

The LMP2 Team title was wrapped up at Spa-Francorchamps last month by Orlen Team WRT and their drivers Louis Deletraz, Robert Kubica and Yiffei Ye took the Driver one. Still the second invitation at the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans granted to the second of the class will be in play.

It is a different story in the other classes. Let us review the situation class by class.

Team WRT drivers Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz won the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps 2021. With G-Drive’s retirement WRT #41 team clinch the 2021 European Le Mans Series title ahead of Portimao’s season finale. A new success of the Belgian WRT squad in its first season with prototype cars, after its FIA World Endurance Championship #31 driven by Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi claimed the LMP2 class win at Le Mans.

Both LMP3 and LMP2 classes qualifications sessions were interrupted by an accident at Raidillon. David Hauser crashed his Racing Experience Duqueine LMP3 D08 Nissan and Nicolas Jamin went off in the same place with his #32 United Autosport. Milesi will start in pole with #37 Cool Racing Oreca 07.

Some changes in entry list for the last two rounds of the ELMS championship. Still the same drivers/teams as in previous races are on the forefront with P. Hanson (United Autosport #22) dominating the session in front of L. Deletraz (Team WRT #41).

WEC LMP2 Season 9, Race 4/6: 24 Hours of Le Mans 2021 race.

Difficult for Vincent Vosse, WRT Team principal, to fully enjoy the success of the #31 WRT Oreca co-driven by Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi winning the LMP2 class as Ye and co-drivers Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica stopped on the final lap of the race with a broken throttle sensor after entering their last lap for a historic win.