On Sunday night at Portimão all the 2021 European Le Mans Series champions were revealed after an action-pack 4 Hours of Portimão race.
In their debut ELMS season, Orlen Team WRT with Robert Kubica, Louis Delétraz and Yifei Ye at the wheel of the n°41 Oreca 07 scored 118 points and were crowned 2021 European Le Mans Series champions. They also won an invitation to the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans, along with the vice-champions, the n°22 United Autosports Oreca of Phil Hanson, Tom Gamble and Jonathan Aberdein. In third position at the end of a classic ELMS season was the n° 65 Panis Racing Oreca of Will Stevens, Julien Canal and James Allen.
2021 was the first year of the new LMP2 Pro/ Am classification. A total of six teams were entered in this category: G-Drive Racing #25, Cool Racing #37, Ultimate #29, Racing Team Turkey #34, Graff #39 and DragonSpeed #21. After a season long battle, John Falb and Rui Andrade at the wheel of the n°25 G-Drive Racing Aurus 01 were victorious, with the n°37 Cool Racing Oreca 07 of Alexandre Coigny and Nicolas Lapierre in second and the n°29 Ultimate Oreca of Matthieu and Jean-Baptiste Lahaye in third.
In the LMGTE class, Iron Lynx scored 126 points, one of the largest points tally in ELMS history. The n°80 Ferrari 488 GTE EVO was crowned 2021 LMGTE champions and received the coveted invitation for the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans. Matteo Cressoni, Rino Mastronardi and Miguel Molina were declared champions at the end of the 4 Hours of Portimão.
In second place with 89 points, and winners of the second automatic invitation to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, was the no55 Spirit of Race Ferrari, with Duncan Cameron and David Perel taking the Vice Champions position in the Driver’s standings.The no88 AF Corse Ferrari was in third position in the season standings.
The fight in LMP3 could not have been closer. Only one point separated the champions, the n°4 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30-D08 and Laurents Hörr from the vice-champions, the n°19 Cool Racing Ligier of Nicolas Maulini, Matt Bell and Niklas Kruetten at the end of the sixth and final race.The 2020 championship winner car, the no2 United Autosports Ligier, was third.
