After scoring a few own goals at Silverstone and backmarker shenanigans at Imola, JotaSport finally clinched their first European Le Mans win of 2015 in a tightly fought contest at Spielberg.
Despite leading from pole (courtesy of a stunning lap from Harry Tincknell), the short lap around the Red Bull Ring kept the field tightly packed, with no less than five safety car periods reigning in JotaSports Felipe Albuquerque – just as it had at Imola.
Eurasia Motorsport cannily used the safety car to pit their Oreca, effectively gifting Pu Jun Jin the lead – albeit briefly – until Simon Dolan (now double-stinting for Jota) re-took the lead ahead of a fast-closing Pierre Thiriet in the number 46 TDS Racing Oreca.
Dolan placed the Gibson-Zytek perfectly, thwarting any attempts from Thiriet to execute a pass. Frustrated, Thiriet dove into the pits to perform an undercut, but a slow stop handing over to Tristan Gommendy merely extended Jota’s advantage when Tincknell once again took over the wheel.
However, it was game on once again when Devi Markozov’s BR01 made heavy impact with the barriers at turn 1 – Gommendy seizing the opportunity to pit under the safety car as Tincknell continued.
The move would’ve worked perfectly for TDS, with Tincknell being forced to relinquish the lead with a splash and dash stop with just 25 minutes remaining. However, it was not to be when Gommendy was served a stop-go penalty for jumping the pit-lane red light (at the end of his stint); swinging the momentum back in Tincknell’s favour by a margin of 2.5 seconds.
In attempting to reel-in the Jota-Zytek, Gommendy spun whilst negotiating the battling LM GTE Ferrari’s of Matt Griffin and Mikkel Mac – handing Tincknell and JotaSport the win with nearly half a minute in their pocket.
JotaSpot now lead the LMP2 championship by a slender 2 points ahead of Thiriet by TDS, with Greaves Motorsport (who finished fourth in Austria) another 8 points in arrears.
The SMP-BR Engineering BR01 of Mikhail Mac, Kirill Ladygin and Anton Ladygin took third, making their ELMS podium debut.
Matt Griffin and Mikkel Mac continued their tussle right to the flag, with Mac performing a late race dive on Griffin to hand team-mates Andrea Rizzoli and Johnny Laursen LM GTE victory in their Ferrari 458.
Stuart Hall, Thomas Flohr and Francesco Castellacci took GTC honours for AF Corse, while Chris Hoy and Charlie Robertson continued their strong run in LMP3, taking their second victory of the season in their Ginetta-Nissan.
ELMS: Red Bull Ring 4 Hours
Images: ELMS