Tag: Inter Europol

Inter Europol, Corvette celebrate day of IMSA firsts at CTMP

Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports took its first win of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season, holding on through a 9m sprint finish to win the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Nick Boulle started the race …

Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports took its first win of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season, holding on through a 9m sprint finish to win the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Nick Boulle started the race and gained the early advantage once polesitter PJ Hyett was given an early drive-through penalty for moving out of line at the start of the race. From there, Tom Dillmann took over and maintained the green and yellow No. 52 ORECA LMP2 07’s advantage, keeping the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA of Steven Thomas and Scott Huffaker behind.

With less than 20m left, Ryan Dalziel crashed in the Esses to bring out a full course yellow — just after Felipe Fraga in the No. 74 Riley ORECA had overtaken Huffaker for second place.

Fraga closed to within a second of Dillmann with two laps left, but Dillmann’s masterful maneuvering through traffic allowed him to hold Fraga at bay for the victory — the first win for Inter Europol Competition in IMSA, and the first IMSA win for both drivers.

Fraga and Gar Robinson finished second, just 0.658s away from their first win of the year, while the No. 11 TDS ORECA of Thomas and Huffaker completed the overall podium in third.

Behind them were the two United Autosports USA ORECAs, the No. 2 (Ben Keating/Ben Hanley) and the No. 22 (Daniel Goldburg/Filipe Albuquerque) in fourth and fifth; the No. 8 Tower Motorsport Oreca (John Farano/Renger van der Zande) came home sixth.

The No. 99 AO Racing ORECA of Hyett and Louis Deletraz dropped to eighth after Deletraz spun following contact with the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA (George Kurtz/Colin Braun), which finished just ahead of them in seventh.

Robinson and Fraga now lead the LMP2 championship with three races remaining in their season, but only by 12 points over Boulle and Dillmann. Robinson also took the lead in the Jim Trueman Award standings, with Boulle just 20 points behind him in the race for the golden ticket to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

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The new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R took its long-awaited maiden victory in IMSA competition — via a 1-2 finish for Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports in GTD Pro.

The No. 3 Corvette of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims scored the victory, just ahead of the No. 4 of Nicky Catsburg, and Tommy Milner, who previously gave the Z06 GT3.R its first win in GT World Challenge America earlier this year.

Sims and Garcia led almost the entire 2h40m race, only surrendering the lead during the first round of routine pit stops. This came just after Dennis Andersen crashed his No. 20 MDK by High Class Racing Oreca at Turn 9, which led to the first full course yellow of the race.

Michael Levitt/Lumen

While the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurin Heinrich and Seb Priaulx just held on for third place, the two were the winners in terms of the GTD Pro championship battle — after the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat) retired with 30m left due to a suspected engine failure.

The No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 (Harry Tincknell/Mike Rockenfeller) and the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Ross Gunn/Mario Farnbacher) rounded out the top five in GTD Pro, with the red plaid No. 9 Pfaff Motorsport McLaren GT3 Evo (Oliver Jarvis/Marvin Kirchhofer) sixth in the team’s home race.

For the second time in three years, Ontario native Roman de Angelis won his home race in the GTD class. This time, veteran driver Spencer Pumpelly was his co-pilot as the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin finally got its first win in 2024, in what has been a tough season for them.

Pumpelly took the lead just after half-distance, taking advantage of a spin from Turner Motorsport’s Patrick Gallagher, and he and de Angelis never relinquished the advantage.

The No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward and Philip Ellis extended their massive GTD championship points lead with a second-place finish in class, while the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren of Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff put on a late charge to take third place from the No. 96 Turner BMW of Gallagher and Robby Foley.

Rounding out the top five in GTD was the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Parker Thompson).

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns with all four classes in action at Road America on August 4.

RESULTS

Inter Europol overcomes adversity to win LMP2 at Le Mans

In LMP2, there was drama all the way to the final hour of the 24 Hours of Le Mans before the No. 34 Inter Europol ORECA completed what was a coming-of-age performance from the organization, which scored the first-ever Le Mans win for a Polish team. …

In LMP2, there was drama all the way to the final hour of the 24 Hours of Le Mans before the No. 34 Inter Europol ORECA completed what was a coming-of-age performance from the organization, which scored the first-ever Le Mans win for a Polish team.

Albert Costa, Jakub Smiechowski and an injured Fabio Scherer (who drove with a broken foot after being run over by the Corvette in pit lane) were superb in the second half of the race when things started to die down. They were pushed to the very end by WRT’s No. 41 ORECA of Louis Deletraz, Rui Andrade and Robert Kubica, who were just 21 seconds behind by the end of the race.

“When I started the race I thought it was over after 15 minutes because my foot hurt so much,” admitted Scherer, who hopped to the car at each pit stop. But with a lot of treatment, I was able to race. The adrenaline kicked in and I was in the flow. Now I start to feel my foot more and more but it doesn’t matter — to win Le Mans means everything. I don’t care if I can’t walk out of here!”

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There were multiple late-race scares for the Inter Europol team, in addition to managing Scherer’s injury. It was under investigation for a pit infringement two hours from the end that would have cost the team its lead if a drive-through was handed out. Thankfully, the penalty was limited to a reprimand.

However, the team’s focus quickly shifted as it had to manually place signage on the pit wall to instruct Scherer to pit in the closing hour as the car’s radio had failed. But they shook it all off and will now celebrate long into the night.

“After our podium at Spa, I thought Le Mans was still too big for us,” said Costa. “But it happened and I am lost for words. I was always following this race when I was younger. So to do it in my first attempt, to win this, is all I can say. It’s amazing.”

Inter Europol Competition’s Jakub Smiechowski, Fabio Scherer and Albert Costa let loose on the Le Mans podium. Alexander Trienitz/Motorsport Images

The No. 41 WRT ORECA of Andrade, Deletraz and Kubica held on to finish second. In the closing stages there was little to separate the Belgian-flagged car and its rival from Poland. But every time the gap between them threatened to get into single digits Inter Europol’s Costa and later Scherer responded.

Completing the class podium was the No. 30 Duqueine ORECA, which was promoted to third after WRT’s sister No. 41 07 Gibson had a nose change at its final stop and dropped out of the top three. It was a frustrating end for Robert Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Sean Galael, who recovered nicely from a front and rear change early in the race after an off in the tricky sodden conditions.

Inter Europol’s victory looks even more impressive when you scan down the final classification and study the teams that failed to feature in the 24-car-strong category. It really was one of the more unlikely victories in the history of the LMP2 class…

Both of United Autosports’ ORECAs, which struggled for ultimate pace in qualifying, hit trouble and came home a distant eighth and 11th. 

Prema’s ORECAs struggled too — the No. 63 which featured Doriane Pin, Daniil Kvyat and Mirko Bortolotti in its lineup crashed out overnight and the No. 9 was caught up in the rain, getting speared the out-of-control Racing Team Turkey ORECA at Indianapolis. It limped home 16th.

Panis Racing’s ORECA, with the rapid Job van Uitert aboard, threatened to challenge at times too, but it had a starter motor master switch failure that dropped it down towards the end.

With a 10th-place finish in class, the No. 45 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA of George Kurtz, Colin Braun and James Allen won LMP2 Pro/Am, which was a rather chaotic affair. Of the nine cars that took the start, five of them retired, including the No. 80 AF Corse crew of Francois Perrodo, Ben Barnicoat and Norman Nato that looked set to run away with the subclass honors before Barnicoat crashed out at the Porsche Curves after sunrise on Sunday morning.