United Autosports are back in the European Le Mans Series winners' circle. The Anglo-American squad ended a nearly three-year LMP2 victory drought at the 4 Hours of Le Castellet on Sunday, with Ben Hanley taking the chequered flag at Paul Ricard nine seconds clear of the rest of the field after a chaotic final stint.
Griffin Peebles, Gregoire Saucy and Hanley shared driving duties in the No. 22 Oreca-Gibson, but it was the late-race tangle between the championship-contending No. 47 CLX Motorsport entry and the No. 83 AF Corse Oreca that decided which team got to celebrate. AF Corse's Matthieu Vaxiviere had led the race in the closing laps before being assessed a 30-second post-race penalty, dropping the No. 83 entry to sixth and elevating the United Autosports car onto the top step of the podium.
Reshad De Gerus brought the No. 34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca home in second place, also after absorbing a five-second time addition for a closing-laps incident. Edex Sport's No. 28 completed the LMP2 podium in third.
Around the LMP2 Pro/Am sub-class, Nielsen Racing inherited a remarkable late win. The No. 27 entry of Alex Quinn, Kriton Lentoudis and James Allen had been running third in class with five minutes to go, but two penalties in front of them rewrote the order at the chequered flag. The race-leading car at the time of the final pit cycle, the No. 99 AO by TF Racing entry, had been forced to make an unexpected extra stop, and a 10-second penalty for causing a collision dropped the Spirit of Race No. 51 entry off the podium.
The LMGT3 win went the way of Kessel Racing's No. 57 Ferrari 296 GT3, with Mathys Jaubert delivering an outstanding closing stint to bring the car home 17 seconds ahead of the TF Sport Corvette of Blake McDonald, Alec Udell and Charlie Eastwood. Daniel Serra and Takeshi Kimura were on the team radio as the win was confirmed, with Kimura recovering after being collected mid-stint by the Abdulla Al-Khelaifi Ferrari that briefly spun him out of the lead. The AF Corse No. 51 Ferrari completed the GT podium for Charlie Sammani, Conrad Laursen and David Aaregon.
It was a particularly meaningful win for the United Autosports squad. The team has been a fixture at the front of European endurance grids since the early ELMS years but had not converted ELMS pace into a victory in some time, and team principal Richard Dean was visible alongside the celebrating crew in parc ferme.
The European Le Mans Series caravan now packs up and heads to Imola for round three, where the championship implications of Le Castellet's chaotic finish should sharpen further. United Autosports leave Paul Ricard with maximum points and momentum that has been a long time coming.
