JLM Racing wins in Império Endurance Brasil thriller at the Velopark

In what will be remembered as one of the biggest thrillers of the 2020 Império Endurance Brasil season, JLM Racing conquered the 4 Hours of Velopark with the No. 175 JLM Racing AJR, driven by Henrique Assunção, Anderson Toso and Fernando Fortes in hugely dramatic fashion, as almost no one could avoid trouble at the Nova Santa Rita circuit.

After aborting the first starting procedure due to bad aligning, the race started with the polesitter No. 11 JLM AJR commanding the pack with the No. 444 Motorcar AJR in close pursuit. The first non-AJR to appear was the No. 20 Ebrahim Ginetta G57, initially just keeping a similar pace with the cars in front.

Despite being only the early moments of the race, some cars were already spinning, visiting the grass or even the garage with problems. In between the chaos the No. 11 JLM AJR was lost due to contact and spin, and the No. 444 Motorcar AJR was battling with the No. 113 JLM AJR for the overall lead.

The first hour ended with the GT3 class becoming a single car contest as the No. 9 Mattheis Mercedes stopped on track and was kept on garage for 12 minutes for check-ups, leaving the way open to the No. 55 Stuttgart Porsche. Another frontrunner that had problems was the No. 113 JLM AJR with radiatior damage, meaning that the No. 444 Motorcar AJR was leading with authority, 2 laps ahead of the second placed No. 20 Ebrahim Ginetta G57.

The second hour still had its fair share of problems, as the fourth placed No. 11 JLM AJR took the hit in the suspension, joining the No. 113 in the list of issues that JLM Racing had to deal with, while a number of MetalMoro MRXs were stopping on track, with the No. 75 SATTI MRX having the worst end due to a hard attack to a kerb at Turn 1, breaking the suspension and sending the car straight to the barrier.

Towards the end of the second hour the No. 20 Ebrahim Ginetta was able to discount the lap deficit on strategy alone, but pace-wise it wasn’t able to cope with the No. 444 Motorcar AJR, not being able to hold on its short-lived lead. With most of the field still facing problems, the majority of the class leaders were having lone runs at the leading spot.

The final hour started with certain balance between the main contenders, but some issues in the No. 444 were halting its progress, eventually losing the lead to the No. 20 Ebrahim Ginetta, and as the problems for the No. 444 escalated, the No. 20 became more comfortable in its top position, but with 13 minutes to go it had to make a visit to the pits, which handed the first place to the No. 175 JLM AJR, which was an outsider in third place for most of the time.

At the final minutes the fuel pump issue struck the No. 175 JLM AJR too, and the prototype was somehow saved by the time as the No. 55 Stuttgart Porsche could reduce the margin to only 3.458 seconds at the line, though the GT3 car still got the class win with authority.

4 Hours of Velopark - Race results

Other two class winners were overall top-10: The No. 15 AMG CAC Mercedes GT4 won the GT4 class and the No. 63 Tech Force Aston Martin dominated the GT3 Light, which wasn’t taken even after suffering a contact from the overall winner at the final lap.

Just outside the top-10, the No. 57 Stillux Ginetta GT4 won the GT4 Light class after staying for most of the time between the overall best ten. The P3 class winner was the No. 7 Sette Car MRX and the P2 class winner was the returning No. 18 Mottin MCR, even after a rough race with multiple contacts from GT4 class cars.

The next round will be in 20 days time, with the 4 Hours of Goiânia set for 31 October.

PHOTO: Endurance Brasil/MS2/Bruno Terena