AO by TF was certainly one of several teams to receive an automatic invitation to the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans after winning the championship title on this yr's European Le Mans Series.
Tom Ferrier's team secured their place at the following edition of Le Mans after Jonny Edgar, Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz finished second within the 4 Hours of Portimao, the season finale of the European Le Mans Series, behind Lorenzo Flux's winning Cool Racing bike , Ritomo Miyata and Malthe Jakobsen.
In the stands, summing up a fierce season, two championship battles were selected the last lap of the race.
A United Autosports drive-through penalty for contact with Panis Racing gave Cool the lead. Miyata after which Jakobsen didn’t quit and won the race with a lack of 2.4 seconds.
This made the Cool Racing trio the primary multiple overall winners of the six-round championship, and in April also won the season-opening title in Barcelona.
A second place finish for AO by TF was enough for Spa winners Edgar, Kubica and Deletraz to be crowned champions, with closest rivals Inter Europol Competition ending fourth.
This is Edgar's first endurance title since switching from single-seaters, the second for Kubica (who won the title in 2021 with Deletraz) and the third for Deletraz in 4 years. It was also Kubica and Deletraz's second success together after they won their last LMP2 World Endurance Championship title last yr with WRT.
Meanwhile, Inter Europol was upset with the results of the ultimate, pointing to an inappropriate 10-second pitstop penalty as the important thing to the defeat. It was initially given to Sebastian Alvarez, Tom Dillmann and Vlad Lomko for allegedly violating Virtual Safety Car rules. Ultimately, this decision was annulled, but only after it was delivered. Most importantly, it put the Polish team behind AO through TF – it was a defeat they were unable to beat.
“They overturned the penalty two minutes after we had already taken it,” Dillmann said. “I think it's a shame when you're trying to win the championship at this level.”
#43 The ORECA Inter Europol Competition crew was dissatisfied with the fourth place
Photo: Eric Le Galliot
However, the Polish squad would still have an automatic invitation to the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans in P2 alongside AO by TF and the LMP2 Pro-Am and LMP3 champions.
These decisions were also made in Portimao, each in a decidedly dramatic fashion.
AF Corse successfully defended the LMP2 Pro-Am crown after a daring, strategic try and attack Algarve Pro Racing, which was only thwarted on the last lap.
APR's Alex Quinn tried to significantly extend his final fuel stint to secure a category win that may have given him a shock title alongside Richard Bradley and Kriton Lendoudis.
However, on the ultimate lap, Quinn was overtaken by Proton Competition's Bent Viscaal, which in turn gave AF Corse drivers Matthieu Vaxiviere, Alessio Rover and Francois Perrodo a vital two-point advantage and sealed the title, ending fourth at school.
The Italian squad found itself on this position due to the efforts of Vaxiviere, who tore through TDS's Richard Mille through Mathias Beche in a battle that saw the 2 come to blows on quite a few occasions. The Alpine Hypercar driver duly defended the crown he won in 2023 with Perrodo.
Even more dramatic was the finale of the battle for the LMGT3 championship, which was decided only within the last corner.
It was then that Iron Lynx Lamborghini driver Andrea Caldarelli passed stablemate Michelle Gatting (Iron Dames) and took the lead in a move that looked prefer it might have been staged.
Iron Lynx won the LMGT3 title
Photo: Iron Lynx
This was since the scenario played out in such a way that Caldarelli, Hiroshi Hamaguchi and Axcil Jefferies needed a victory to deprive the fifth-placed trio of Takeshi Kimura, Esteban Masson and Daniel Serra (Kessel Racing Ferrari) of the title and entry into the Le Mans LMGT3 class .
Meanwhile in LMP3, a late-race charge meant RLR M Sport driver Gael Julien overtook each of his direct championship rivals from Eurointernational and Team Virage to complete second behind reigning champions Cool Racing, securing the title to himself, Michael Jensen and Nick Adcock in process.
ELMS Portimao race results
