Jon Lancaster gave Greaves a dramatic victory in the European Le Mans Series season opener at Silverstone after a clash with leader Tristan Gommendy with just five minutes remaining. The incident remains under investigation by the race stewards.

Greaves Motorsport Gibson-Nissan 015S driver Lancaster closed onto the tail of leader Gommendy’s TDS Racing ORECA-Nissan 05 with six minutes of the four hours remaining. The pair went either side of a GT Ferrari and Lancaster then attacked Gommendy up the inside of the left-hander leading onto the national straight.

Gommendy turned in, with the pair making contact and the Frenchman spinning. Lancaster lost momentum but survived, allowing the Jota Sport Gibson of Harry Tincknell, who had seemingly dropped out of contention a few laps earlier when he spun at Becketts while battling with the Greaves machine, to come back into contention. But Lancaster was able to hold off Tincknell to win by 0.37 seconds for himself and teammates Bjorn Wirdheim and Gary Hirsch, with Gommendy coming home third.

The grandstand finish was set up by a safety car period with 90 minutes remaining after both Jota (with Filipe Albuquerque) and Greaves (with Hirsch and Wirdheim) had enjoyed spells in the lead. When Simon Dolan took over the Jota car in the middle of the race, the initiative was taken by the Greaves machine driven by Wirdheim but the three cars took the restart with just over an hour to go separated by less than six seconds.

The TDS car, started by Pierre Thiriet, with Ludovic Badey taking over at the first pit stop, ended up with a lead of well over one minute with 30 minutes remaining prior to making its final stop later than its two rivals.

Gommendy took fresh rubber only on the left side of the car, but did not have the pace to escape the charging Lancaster despite setting the car’s fastest lap.

The AF Corse squad looked set to fourth place with one of its two ORECA-Nissan 03s, with Maurizio Mediani, David Markozov and Nicolas Minassian driving, only for the Italian to end up parked in the gravel at Luffield with just under 20 minutes to go.

With the Murphy Prototypes ORECA-Nissan 03R falling out of the running in the final hour with an electrical problem shortly after Nathanael Berthon had taken it over, this left the Krohn Racing Ligier-Judd JSP2 of Oswaldo Negri Jr., Nic Jonsson and Tracy Krohn to finish fourth.

HOY WINS IN LMP3

The first race for the new LMP3 class, which was populated by five examples of the Ginetta-Nissan LMP3, was won by cycling legend Chris Hoy, sharing with the rapid Charlie Robertson. They came home ahead of the sister Team LNT car driven by Michael Simpson and Nissan GT Academy driver Gaetan Paletou.

The Gulf Racing Porsche 911 RSR won the LM GTE class, with Phil Keen taking the lead in the first hour when AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia driver Rui Aguas spun into the gravel after a clash with the Krohn Ligier driven by Negri.

Keen handed over to Mike Wainwright, whose lead was initially cut to almost nothing under the safety car with 90 minutes remaining. But Wainwright was then waved past the safety car as it attempted to pick up leader Wirdheim, meaning that the Porsche ended up with a lead of around a minute-and-a-half over the JMW Motorsport Ferrari driven by George Richardson, Sam Tordoff and Robert Smith.

Wainwright then handed over the car to Adam Carroll at its final pit stop, with the Northern Irishman closing out the win ahead of the Ferrari.

Victory in the GTC class for GT3-specification machinery went to the TDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3 driven by Franck Perera, Dino Lurnadi and Eric Dermont.

The AF Corse Ferrari that claimed pole had been in control of the class until Giorgio Roda collected the slowing Aston Martin of Simon Moller coming onto the start/finish straight with around 90 minutes to go.

RESULTS – 118 LAPS: