ELMS: United Autosports co-lead the championship following Round 4 at Spa Francorchamps.

Following a promising showing at Spa last year, which saw the team take a third place in LMP2 Pro/Am, expectations were high, particularly with the team now leading the LMP2 championship. However, despite a huge team effort throughout the weekend, which saw each car lead its respective category, it was ultimately a weekend of misfortune, with the race simply not falling the team’s way.

Saturday’s qualifying saw United Autosports take on the challenging conditions around the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit, with the No.21 LMP2 Pro/Am of Daniel Schneider, the No.22 LMP2 of Grégoire Saucy and the No.23 LMGT3 of Michael Birch, all looking to secure competitive starting positions ahead of Sunday’s race. With Spa’s unpredictable weather leaving parts of the circuit wet despite no rain falling, the opening LMGT3 qualifying session proved particularly challenging. The decision to run wet tyres ultimately proved unsuccessful, with Birch crossing the line in P14 in the McLaren. Schneider secured P9 in the No.21 LMP2 Pro/Am, while Saucy delivered an impressive performance in the No.22 LMP2, battling through an incredibly tight field to qualify P3 and secure a second-row start for Sunday’s race. The No.22 narrowly missed out on pole position by +0.219.

The lights went green Sunday afternoon at 1pm local time, and the team were racing for Round 4 of the ELMS Championship. The No.22, helmed by United’s Griffin Peebles, sustained contact from the No.34 at La Source on the opening lap, before an incident involving the LMP3 class No.13 brought out the first safety car of the race.

Racing resumed on lap 4 and Peebles immediately went in to attack mode, battling the IDEC Sport Oreca for the lead. Soon after passing, the No.22 pulled clear of the No.18, extending its advantage to 10 seconds by Lap 10. However, the stop-start nature of the race quickly became a factor. The second safety car was deployed on Lap 18 and, although Peebles made another good restart to pull away from the field, his momentum was once again cut short when the third safety car was called after a car in the LMP3 category made contact with the wall.

The interruptions gave the team little opportunity to stretch their legs and demonstrate the pace of the United trio. During the third Safety Car period, the first driver change of the race occurred with the No.21 coming into the pits for Sato to take over from Schneider. When the safety car came in on Lap 25, Peebles again made an effective restart, but the continued interruptions from multiple safety cars throughout the opening two hours continued to disrupt the race. The lack of sustained green-flag running made it difficult for the team to build momentum and maximise the pace of the cars.

The No.21 showed impressive pace and worked its way through the field to take the lead. At the halfway point, the team were performing well across all three entries, with the No.21 in P1, the No.22 now piloted by Saucy in P2 and the No.23, now headed by Boyd following a driver change in P8.

The No.23’s well-timed strategy paid dividends as the car continued to climb through the field, eventually taking the lead and spending much of the race at the front of the LMGT3 field.

“The pace was fantastic, and it was really nice to lead the race before Garnet got in and drove brilliantly, as always,” said No.23 United Autosports driver Wayne Boyd. “Unfortunately, we then had an issue with the car that took a bit of pace away from us, but overall, it was a much more positive weekend.”

The No.22 was also battling at the front when a car spun across its path. Saucy did a fantastic job to narrowly avoid what could have been a race-ending incident, but was forced off track to avoid contact, ultimately losing three positions in the process – a moment that would prove critical to the final result. Despite the setbacks, the pace shown across all three United Autosports entries provided plenty of positives to take from the weekend.

The final hour of the race remained relatively clean. However, due to a safety car procedure infringement by the team earlier in the race, the No.21 was handed a three-minute stop-and-go penalty. This ultimately ended the team’s hopes of fighting for a competitive overall result.

For the remaining two cars, the No.23’s rollercoaster weekend continued as it was challenged to stay at the front of the pack during the final hour before making a fuel stop in the final 30 minutes, eventually crossing the line in P10. The No.22 was unable to recover the positions lost earlier in the race and remained in P5 through to the chequered flag. However, a post-race penalty for the No.10 positively impacted the team’s position in the LMP2 class, with the No.22 ultimately finishing P4 at the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and securing a tie for the championship lead.

Regardless of the circumstances, the overall pace shown across the United Autosports entries provided plenty of positives to take from the weekend.

“The highlight of the weekend was that we were leading in each class, and generally, we were very quick throughout the weekend,” said Tom Hodgson, Director of Customer Racing. “The drivers did a great job, and the feedback from them was very positive, so we’ve definitely made some progress with the car and the setup. Unfortunately, we had a few setbacks during the race which ultimately cost us, but the pace was there and we were in a position to fight at the front. So, there are a lot of positives to take from the weekend, even if the results didn’t quite show what we were capable of.”

While the results did not reflect the potential demonstrated throughout the weekend, United Autosports leaves Spa looking forward to building on as the championship as the Yorkshire based team head to the home race at Silverstone.

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