DAVEY EUWEMA
EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIESBARCELONA (ESP)
14 APRILROUND 1/6
Cool Racing claimed its first overall victory in the European Le Mans Series when Malthe Jakobsen fended off Alex Lynn and Ben Hanley to take honours with Ritomo Miyata and Lorenzo Fluxa at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The race started after a minute’s silence in honour of Gerhard Freundorfer, the team manager of Le Mans Cup squad Proton Huber Competition who lost his life in a paddock accident during set-up earlier in the week. Once the race got under way, it was United Autosports’ Filip Ugran who started from pole and led the early stages. The Romanian, who has moved to United after a year with Prema in the World Endurance Championship, soon found himself in the crosshairs of LMP2 debutant Fluxa. The ex-Formula Regional racer put in an impressive opening stint to fight his way from fifth to second place.
Better still, when Ugran was caught napping at the end of an early Full Course Yellow, Fluxa was right there to take advantage. The Spanish teenager reacted more quickly than his adversary when green flag racing resumed and shot past on the main straight to take the lead. He would stay there until he handed over to Toyota protege Miyata. The Japanese soon had to deal with pressure laid down by Olli Caldwell, who had taken over the Algarve Pro Racing car from Matthias Kaiser and powered his way past into the lead in the third hour.
It was not a position that reigning LMP2 champion team APR held for very long. A shorter penultimate stop allowed rising star Jakobsen, now installed in the Cool ORECA, to leapfrog the APR ORECA of Lynn and retake the lead. Although the Cadillac WEC star quickly closed in on the young Dane, he was unable to pass and spent the final minutes of the race defending from Hanley, in the United ORECA he shared with Ugran and Marino Sato. Jakobsen kept his ‘Cool’ for the Swiss squad, ahead of Lynn and Hanley. Behind
