British-built cars dominate opening round of European Le Mans Series
Gibson-Nissan 015S sportscars scorched to an emphatic first and second place in the opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Silverstone on Saturday. Dicing for the top spot, the Gibsons of Greaves Motorsport and Jota Sport led for over 80 per cent of the race. The four-hour contest came to an exciting climax four laps before the end as Jon Lancaster, in Greaves’ Gibson 015S, muscled his way past the new Oreca, the only car to challenge the Gibsons, and into the lead.
As the Greaves car of Jon, Bjorn Wirdhein and Gary Hirsch sped to the flag, it was almost chased down by a rapidly closing Harry Tincknell in the Jota car. Harry, who shared the drive with Simon Dolan and Filipe Albuquerque, also set the fastest lap of the race.
The 118-lap, Silverstone race was the first for the Gibson brand that has replaced the Zytek name for 2015. The Gibson 015S, which has been penned by Oliver Cartledge, is an evolution of the twice Le Mans winning Zytek Z11SN.
The dominance of the Gibson chassis was underlined by the fact that the two cars were first and second in every practice session as well as qualifying. To add to a great weekend at Silverstone, the Gibson-Nissan engined LMP2s of the G-Drive team finished first and second in class in Sunday’s World Endurance six hours.
‘We look forward to the next challenge when the Jota team takes on the LMP2 class of the World Endurance Championship at the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit on May 2,’ said James Hibbert, Gibson’s sportscar manager. ‘I would like to thank our workforce at Repton, our suppliers, Nissan, Greaves and Jota for a great collective effort.’
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GPR03/2015
