ELMS: Endurance Racing returns to Barcelona for fourth round of championship

The winning Prema Team celebrate their win in Catalonia

Following a lengthy summer break, Europe’s premier endurance motorsport series returned to Catalonia for the Four Hours of Barcelona. In the headline LMP2 class, it was the dominant Prema Racing team who found themselves winners for the third time this season, defying a rocky qualifying session. The Italian outfit found themselves in the lead as starting driver Ferdinand Habsburg surged ahead in the 38th minute, momentum secured by his teammates Lorenzo Colombo and Louis Delétraz as Prema retained the lead until the close of the race. They were followed by Panis Racing in second and Cool Racing in third. The Oreca 07’s dominance of the format was exemplified in its presence in positions 1-16 of the final race results, out of 36 finishers. This result leaves Prema far ahead in the championship battle, with only two races remaining.

In LMP3, Inter Europol Competition weathered a late storm of a 10 second penalty to win when Guilherme Oliveira sped across the finish line with a 15.2 second advantage, sending the points to the Polish outfit. Cool Racing scored another podium with another P3 finish, and DKR Engineering came runners up.

Rounding out the classifications with LMGTE were the victorious drivers of the No.77 Proton Competition Porsche, Christian Ried, the ironically named Lorenzo Ferrari and Gianmaria Bruni.

Another long month lies ahead until the return of ELMS in Belgium on Sunday 25 September with the Four Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.