Jon Lancaster brought the no41 Gibson Nissan home in second place to claim the 2015 European Le Mans Series Team and Driver titles
Oct 18th 2015 – A thrilling race in Portugal saw the no46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca of Nicolas Lapierre take the chequered flag but it was the Greaves Motorsport team that was celebrating after Jon Lancaster brought the no41 Gibson Nissan home in second place to claim the 2015 European Le Mans Series Team and Driver titles.
The no38 JOTA Sport Gibson of Harry Tincknell finished 4th and the Championship leaders before the final race of the season saw the title slip away.
The LMGTE win went to the no52 BMW Team MarcVDS BMW, the Belgian team’s first win of 2015. The title went to the no60 Formula Racing team with a 5th place finish for Mikkel Mac.
The GTC title was secured by the no59 TDS Racing BMW after Eric Dermont took the chequered flag in second place behind the no63 AF Corse Ferrari of Marco Cioci.
With the LMP3 title already secured by the no3 Team LNT Ginetta Nissan of Chris Hoy and Charlie Robertson, it was fitting that their teammates Michael Simpson and Gaeltan Paletou took their first win of the year.
Tim Greaves, Team Principal: “What a day, what a race. This championship win, our second, was amazing, I don’t think any other team has matched that achievement. We had our up and downs, any of the three top teams could have won it, things really went down to the wire. With about 20 minutes to go I didn’t know where I was, we struggled to think straight on the pit-wall. That demonstrates that were were emotionally involved and stressed, we had a few run-ins with the Official but………. What it means to the team is that we are back up where we belong, we have won races, we have won at Le Mans and now we have another championship. Björn, Gary and Jon stuck to the plan we had before the race and we all coped well with the changing and challenging conditions. The guys on the team were particularly sharp today at the pit stops, the reward for the hard work and practice in the run up to the race. We are looking forward to a light celebration tonight and then planning our 2016 campaign.”
Jacob Greaves, Team Manager. “A great way to round off a great season. What a race that was, keeping us all in suspense till the final lap, but we did it, our second title. For this we have to thank our partners, Gibson Technology, Nissan, Dunlop and Kairos Technologies who have given us the platform to build this success. I must pay particular tribute to the guys on the team, their pit-work today was fantastic. Björn, Gary and Jon drove really well in very difficult circumstances, Paul Thomas did another great job today engineering the car. Greaves Motorsport is both a team and a family, today we saw how those qualities were rewarded with success, I hope we will continue with this in the future.”
Six of the eight ELMS titles were decided a few hours before at the end of a dramatic 4 Hours of Estoril and the names of the champions for 2015 are –
LMP2 Team: Greaves Motorsport
LMP2 Drivers: Gary Hirsch, Jon Lancaster, Bjorn Wirdheim
LMP3 Team: Team LNT
LMP3 Drivers: Chris Hoy, Charlie Robertson
LMGTE Team: Formula Racing
LMGTE Drivers: Johnny Laursen, Mikkel Mac, Andrea Rizzoli
GTC Team: TDS Racing
GTC Drivers: Eric Dermont, Dino Lunardi, Franck Perera
