ELMS: Double podium and championship lead secured on home soil at 4 Hours of Silverstone 

An electric start from rookie Griffin Peebles set the tone for the No.22’s afternoon. Starting down in P10 after qualifying, Peebles climbed seven positions inside the opening 30 minutes, erasing the disappointing grid slot and easing the ORECA 07 into the top three, briefly running as high as P2. A drive-through penalty for early contact then dropped the contender to P6 – still a place ahead of the team’s closest championship rivals – before Ben Hanley took over and pulled out a ten-second buffer to claw back the lost ground. Rain began to fall, with Hanley holding out on slicks in extremely challenging and changeable conditions, moments later the rival No.29 spun into the gravel. 

A Virtual Safety Car period followed, during which the No.22 picked up two further positions on wet weather tyres, before making its final scheduled stop, handing over to Grégoire Saucy in P4 for the final hour. As the rain eased and visibility improved, Saucy went on the attack, building a gap before the car directly ahead was forced into a longer pit stop – promoting the No.22 in the process. It proved decisive: the No.22 crossed the line in P3, sealing the podium and putting the team at the top of the LMP2 championship, with a thirteen-point advantage heading into the final round in Portugal. 

A clean opening stint from the No.21 LMP2 Pro/Am kept both United entries in podium contention throughout four hours of constant strategy calls and late tyre decisions. Daniel Schneider, Oliver Jarvis and Marino Sato had qualified P11 the day before, and Schneider made the most of a composed start, staying clear of the first-lap incidents and gaining a place before handing over to Jarvis, with a full service, in P10. A Virtual Safety Car shook up the order shortly after, and Jarvis found himself out on slicks just as the rain began to fall in earnest. The Safety Car intervention helped the No.21 back into the fight, and the team seized the moment, diving early for wet-weather tyres – a call that paid off as the rain intensified, and much of the field was left exposed on slicks. 

After a single stint on wets, Jarvis handed the car to Marino Sato with 75 minutes remaining, and the Japanese driver briefly took the overall race lead before an approaching Algarve Pro Racing entry, aided by a drying track, found a way past. With the LMP2 Pro/Am win now in the balance, the No.21 and its closest rival, the TDS car, both dived in for a final splash of fuel; TDS’s fuel advantage meant a shorter stop, and they jumped Sato in the pits. Sato managed the gap superbly to the flag, bringing the No.21 home in P2 on home soil. 

“P2 today for the No.21, P3 overall – our best result so far this year, and we were really close to getting the win,” said Sato. “I was leading the race outright at one point but couldn’t quite hang on to it. The pace was good early on and again at the end, but the middle of the stint was much trickier, and I struggled a lot there. Top effort from everyone on the team, and from Daniel and Oliver – they did a really good job today and put me in a position to fight for the win, even if I couldn’t quite hold on to it in the end. A great result for both cars to be on the podium, though. Bring on Portugal – hopefully we can go one better there. Big thanks to the team.” 

The No.23 McLaren, meanwhile, raced back to its roots at Silverstone, with the papaya LMGT3 crew bringing the car home in the top ten. Michael Birch took the start and steered clear of the early carnage, only to be hit directly from behind by P2, spinning Michael into the pit-entry road – a moment that cost the team a full lap and would prove to be the defining setback of their race. He pitted for fresh tyres and rejoined for the remainder of the green-flag running before a Virtual Safety Car was called. The No.23 came in for a driver change to Wayne Boyd, who ran just two laps on slicks under the Safety Car before switching to wets, a swap that cost the car no position at all. Boyd then produced a superb recovery on wets, driving the No.23 from the back of the queue of the GT cars through to the front – a drive that, had the lap not been lost, Boyd’s performance would have put the McLaren in P1. A final driver change to Garnet Patterson saw the No.23 through to the flag, crossing the line P9 to round out a solid weekend for the GT3 crew. 

“It was a hugely positive weekend for us on home soil,” said Tom Hodgson, Director of Customer Racing. “A hard-fought double podium for the LMP2 pairing, a top-ten finish for the No.23, and – most importantly – the championship lead heading into the final round in Portugal. Conditions like that really test everyone, not just the drivers, and the whole team did a brilliant job all weekend – from the strategists making the right calls at the right moments, to the mechanics getting the cars in and out of the pits cleanly every time, to all nine drivers keeping their heads in genuinely tricky circumstances. To come away from our home race with points for both LMP2 entries and the GT3, along with the championship lead in hand, is exactly what we set out to do, and everyone across the whole team should be proud of that effort. Now we regroup and take that same focus to win the championship at the last round in Portugal.” 

Off-track, the United Autosports team welcomed friends, family, sponsors and partners into its Copse Bank hospitality throughout the weekend event – a generous gesture from the team as a thank you for the dedication and support shown by everyone throughout the season. Getting to celebrate a double podium on home soil, surrounded by so many of the people behind the team’s season, made the result all the more special. 

All focus now turns to the final round of the 2026 European Le Mans Series season, at Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portugal, on Sunday 11 October. The No.22 heads into the finale with the chance to seal the LMP2 title outright, while the No.21 remains firmly in the fight of its own, still with a chance of victory. The No.23 Papaya McLaren will be looking to sign the season off the way it did last year – with a podium finish in Portugal. Stay up to date @unitedautosports.