Qualifying
First, the GT cars hit the track as we have Sunday, sunny and hot morning here in Red Bull Ring. Support race, consisting of 11 formulas Auto GP had their first race even earlier, at half past eight. All eleven cars took the grid for a standing start, but one car spun in the first turn, and never recovered. It was then notable that after a few laps (5 of 23) some cars already went to the pits for some adjustment, or a tyre change, but our attention was turning towards the ELMS events.
GTE and GTC
First part of the qualifying GTE and GTC, we had two Porsches at the front. The Ferrari dominance is gone, as already indicated yesterday. Another difference between Red Bull Ring and Imola is that almost all GTE cars here are ahead of the GTC field while in Italy they were pretty much mixed. However the time difference between the two classes is not really big (less than 1.5 s). The newcomer, Proton Competition Porsche, held then the provisional pole ahead of several Ferraris and the Aston Martin until the last minutes of the session, when SMP Racing no.72 with Andrea Bertollini at the wheel improved Richard Lietz's time by two tens of a second. The Aston Martin also improved at the end of the session and was classified third. So we have three different makes at the top of the GT grid – really a good work done by performance balancers. Less sure about the sporting value of that.
LMP2
LMP2 cars are now on the track. Pegasus Morgan first and immediately gets ahead of the GT cars by 3 seconds. Others joint the session only later, very slowly - as it became common in the Prototype portion of the qualifying in the ELMS. It was very close with Thiriet/TDS Ligier at the front for some time. Then the Alpine of Signatech held the provisional pole as the Race Performance Oreca set even better time. Morand Racing Morgan was not bad either despite not featuring at the very top. In the end it got even ahead of the Alpine. Ligier then had its private battle with the lone Oreca, when at the end Jota Racing Zytek, so far having kept themselves a little back among other two Zyteks, set a time that was a full half a second ahead of the race of the field. In the final results sheets, the gap between the pole sitting Jota Zytek (Harry Tincknell) and the second car was bigger than the difference between the next six LMP2 cars. Only the Pegasus Morgan was notably further back.
Race Report
After another Auto GP race and a pit walk with an autograph session, the pits were open for the ELMS entrants. The gridding procedure was finished half hour before the scheduled race start. All 33 cars were ready on time and started the race, exactly at 2 PM. It did not take too long, and we had a safety car out, and also one retirement. This time the safety seemed to be a good solution as it was only in the third lap of race when the lone BMW Z4 GT3 spun and hit the barriers, just after the first turn of the track. The car stayed across the half of the track in not really safe position. While it did not look damaged much, the touch was only slight; it was towed to the Parc Fermé.
After a few laps the race was restarted and never interrupted again by any accidents or incidents. After the re-start the Jota Zytek continued their leading ahead of the only Oreca-branded car in the race (Race Performance) and the only Alpine in the race (re-branded Oreca). During the short safety car period both Greaves Motorsport Zyteks opted for pitting. By the way, this helped the better car no.28, to gain a lead for a single lap, as it crossed the pit lane finish line earlier than the cars behind the safety car (and it was in the lead later once more due to different pit stop strategy anyway).
By the time the race was back in the full speed the top positions remained unchanged: Jota Zytek in the lead, ahead of the Oreca, Alpine, Ligier (we can reference these cars only by their make), and two Morgans, Morand and Pegasus. Greaves Zytek no.28 returned quite behind the last GT car, so a journey through the GT field was ahead of Bachetta, who drove it at the time. The other Greaves Zytek no.41, in Caterham colours, pitted longer, and despite not losing a lap, it could not manage to join the train of cars behind safety car in time and became a first lapped LMP2 car. It was the slowest one anyway, even losing a position to the Pegasus Morgan, before the BMW crash.
In the GTE, the beginning of the race was all about Aston Martin Gulf. With a proper driver it could easily play a game with all the Ferraris behind. Very, very unfortunately, when extremely slow Roald Goethe got behind the wheel, he wasted all effort of the team within a few laps. While Daniel Brown lapped at 1:30.5 and Stuart Hall at 1:30.6, Goethe was happy to set 1:34.2, and spectator we met - only when he was behind another car that showed him where to brake. We really think that a team with a potential a winning a championship should really avoid such paying dilettantes of this calibre. Of course, then the GT race turned into another Ferrari procession, as another quick car, the Proton Porsche was eliminated by both Felbermayrs, though the younger, could kept with professional Richard Lietz within a second per his best lap. In any case, he started the race and from the first GT row, he was down to seventh in GT a few seconds after the race was started.
The Greaves Zytek no.28 managed to take on entire GT field by lap 15 (just 8 laps after the re-start). By this time the LMP2 positions were unchanged despite the cars had some close battles, when then went through the finish line, the positions did not change. First series of pit stops promoted some cars briefly to the lead (no.34 Oreca, no.43 Morand Morgan or again no.28 Greaves Zytek). However when it all settled the Oreca was safely in front - due to skipping tyre change and thus gaining a lot of time. Well, but later in this stint, it was losing maybe too much.
This meant the Jota Zytek regained their lead by the lap 52. By them we had the slow Greaves Zytek back ahead of the GT field. But we also lost one notable LMP2 car. The Ligier suffered problems and pitted for a few laps and after return, it went off at the highest point of the track and became a second retirement. With the next pit stops the Jota Zytek no.38 returned back to the lead, however the Alpine no.36 was now the car to beat. It did not take long and Alpine was in the lead for the first time in lap 67. Since then it was only a battle between the two, with the Alpine having some advantage and improving their lead as the race progressed. The Oreca (Race Performance) settled third and early in the race delayed Greaves Zytek no.28 managed to get the fourth position, in the same lap with the leaders.
Unfortunate Morgan Morand could be happy to finish just two seconds ahead the second Zytek entry, two laps behind the winners - all that after a great performance by the middle of race but also some penalties applied later on the car. Even worse the race developed for the other Morgan. The Pegasus team, which by the way confirmed their intention to run both their cars in the next season, suffered a very long pit stop in the middle of race, after some promising early performance, and was delegated to 29th position in the finish. Only winning Ferrari no.60 from Imola, which we already considered a retirement when it was suddenly pushed from the garage to finish the race - the very last.
As we said, with Goethe ruining the Aston Martin effort by notably weak performance, became a Ferrari in top six: AF Corse, Kessel Racing, JMW Motorsport on podium with AT Racing, another AF Corse and SMP Racing behind them. The SMP team dominated the GTC class in the top two spots. AF Corse was next, ahead of two McLarens, entered by ART Grand Prix. Two entered Porsches in the class finished next.
