Female power with the pink Porshe

The third appointment of the ELMS championship, which took place over the weekend between July 6 and 7 in the beautiful setting of the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola, ends with a victory in the LMP2 category for the AO by TF #14 team, with drivers Jonny Edgar, Louis Delétraz and Robert Kubica, former Formula 1 driver. The American team takes the overall standings after 4 hours of racing thanks also to a posthumous penalty against the Panis Racing #65 team with drivers Arthur Leclerc, brother of Ferrari Formula 1 driver, Charles Leclerc, Charles Milesi and Manuel Maldonado. Also spectacular is the victory in the LMGT3 category for the female team of the Iron Dames #85 with drivers Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Sarah Bovy. The ELMS, an acronym for “European Le Mans Series”, is an important car championship that takes place at the European level and in which only two types of cars compete, prototypes and grand touring. More precisely we have the LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype), LMP2 Pro/Am and LMP3 prototypes, which mainly differ in size, weight and type of driver who can drive them (there is a specific differentiation between drivers according to age, experience, victories, license and so on), and the LMGT3 grand touring cars, which take up their respective road models but transformed into a racing key (this year the car manufacturers Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Porsche are featured). This series of races was promoted by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), a French motor association, as a support to the most important race in the world, which is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, from which the title of the aforementioned championship. This year’s calendar includes 6 main races, each lasting four hours, and chronologically touches the tracks of Barcelona, Le Castellet, Imola (which we will talk about in this article), then moving on to the famous Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium, then closing with Mugello and Portimao, in Portugal. Now at the third race, the championship presents itself at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola with great unknowns, given the presence of as many as 43 competing cars and teams more aggressive than ever, after the race on the Santerno circuit last year was cancelled due to modernization works that F1 had requested in order to return to run the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. The intense weekend included qualifying for the various categories of vehicles on Saturday afternoon and the four-hour race on Sunday starting at 11.30 am. The qualifiers immediately put on some nice surprises, facing a rather high temperature (over 30°C throughout the afternoon). We indeed had a wonderful pole position of the Panis Racing team for the LMP2 category, with car number #65 driven by the Frenchman Charles Milesi, already winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans of the 2021 season with the same category in the WRT team, concluded with a record lap of just 1:30.829, surpassing by a second and a half the last pole recorded for the same category by the AF Corse #88 team in the previous edition of Imola 2022. For the LMP2 Pro/Am category the pole was won by the Proton Competiotion team with car number #77 driven by the Italian Giorgio Roda. Following we had the pole for the LMP3 of the DKR Engineering #4 team with Wyatt Brichacek and finally the beautiful pole for the LMGT3 category of the female team of the Iron Dames #85 with Sarah Bovy. It is known that in the Emilian circuit, in races like this, the qualifiers can make a big difference, given the difficulty of overtaking along the track. In fact, on Sunday, characterized by a light rain that only wetted the circuit a bit before the start, there are no great emotions, if not some long of a driver, some slight scuffle, some spin, otherwise nothing special. Perhaps a couple of things can be pointed out. First of all a great collision against the protective barriers beyond the gravel occurred halfway through the race by the driver of the Swiss team Cool Racing #37 Paul-Loup Chatin, who came out unscathed from the car right in the Tamburello area, sadly known for being the place where on May 1 exactly thirty years ago, so in 1994, one of the most famous and winning drivers in the history of Formula 1, the Brazilian Ayrton Senna, died, commemorated by a monument depicting his effigy located on the track side overlooking that cursed point. Secondly, we can remember the beautiful battle that took place in the LMGT3 category, even if at the finish line there are no major changes. In addition to the results already mentioned at the beginning, we complete with the LMP2 Pro/Am standings with the first place of the Algarve Pro Racing #20 team with drivers Alex Quinn, Richard Bradley and Kriton Lentoudis and the LMP3 with the first place for the Eurointernational #11 team with drivers Matthew Bell and Adam Ali. To conclude, as a side event to the main motor event, the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux took place on two thirty-minute races, in which respectively the Dutchman Paul Meijer with the Hans Weijs Motorsport team and the Finn Kalle Rovanperä, already twice world rally champion with Toyota Gazoo Racing, with the RedAnt Racing team won. In addition to this, there was also the nice challenge on the fastest pit stop made outside the race, sponsored and promoted by Total Energies, which saw the best time reached by the Iron Dames team in a time of 13.657 seconds. Double congratulations therefore to the female team. The next stop will therefore be in Belgium, at the historic Spa-Francorchamps track, on the weekend of August 24 and 25.