Once again Jota Sport have unfortunately missed out on winning the European Le Mans Series for the second year in a row.
Last season they finished as runners-up and in 2013 they finished third, and unfortunately this season a fourth place finish in the final round of the season saw them finish third once again.
The JOTA Gibson finished a lap behind the winner in the Four Hours of Estoril – the British team having recorded podium place finishes in four of this year’s five races – the only team to achieve this impressive feat. JOTA’s stunning form of one win (Red Bull Ring) plus second (Silverstone) third (Imola and Paul Ricard) and fourth placings, five front row starts and three fastest race laps nevertheless saw them miss out on the series title by four-points. Last year, despite achieving first, second, third and fourth place race finishes, JOTA agonisingly missed out on the Series “crown” by the same margin.
Albuquerque started the JOTA Sport Gibson 015S-Nissan from pole-position on the 30-car grid in the ELMS finalé at Estoril with a slender two-point lead after the team had received a time penalty costing them a deserved race victory in the previous race at Paul Ricard in France and subsequently a severely reduced championship lead.
Filipe had done a stunning job in qualifying on a treacherously slippery wet track to record JOTA’s fifth front row start of the season. The Audi Sport “works” driver impressively built a near 30secs lead by the time he pitted for Dolan with 52mins gone. Simon soon returned to the front of the field but a sudden heavy rain shower with 100mins on the clock caught Simon out. The JOTA Gibson slowly spun into the gravel trap, requiring a tow-out by a recovery vehicle under Full Course Yellow. He immediately pitted for fuel and “intermediate” tyres resuming seventh but over 90secs off the lead.
Another rain deluge brought about another brief Full Course Yellow while Dolan, driving intelligently on the now very slippery in places track, was back up to fifth at the halfway point in the race. Tincknell took over with 90mins to run and immediately bettered the race’s fastest lap set by Albuquerque – the JOTA Gibson an astonishing 0.649secs faster than any other car in the weather-affected race. The “factory” Nissan NISMO driver moved into fourth place with 42mins remaining before making his final pit-stop 12mins later for fuel, Harry duly crossing the finishing line in that position, one-lap down on the winning car, despite a hard charge.
In addition to its ELMS campaign this year JOTA, which recently announced an exciting and unique partnership with Arden International Motorsport to create opportunities for drivers between sportscar and single-seater disciplines, claimed a win (Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps) and second place (24 Hours of Le Mans) in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship. JOTA Sport will contest the entire nine-race 2016 WEC with an ORECA 05-Nissan while competing in ELMS with its Gibson 015S-Nissan next year. Both championships begin at Silverstone (15-17 Apr).