European Le Mans Series
James Allen has won for the second time this year in the final round of the European Le Mans Series at Portimão.
Gustavo Yacaman started the #40 Graff Oreca 07-Gibson which Allen was driving, and the Colombian passed Hugo de Sadeleer (#32 United Autosports Ligier JSP217-Gibson) for the lead towards the end of his stint despite starting ninth.
Allen resumed in second when the car temporarily failed to fire in the pits, but took advantage when de Sadeleer made contact with an LMP3 to return to the front.
Car #40 was one of four cars still in contention in the latter stages and Brit Richard Bradley passed car #32 again in the final stint.
The win was the trio’s second straight after also taking victory in Spa in September.
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The Graff team, Allen, and Bradley finished third in their respective championships (LMP2 teams’ and drivers’).
G-Drive, Leo Roussel, and Memo Rojas won the LMP2 titles.
In LMP3 class, Ricky Capo/Maxwell Hanratty/James Dayson were an early retirement in the #12 Eurointernational Ligier JS P3-Nissan.
Capo was ultimately 10th in the LMP3 drivers’ championship.
Chequered Flag of the Final Round of the ELMS !! pic.twitter.com/6uZgEjrw5F
— ELMSeries_Official (@EuropeanLMS) October 22, 2017
Superbike World Championship
Recently crowned Superbike world champion Jonathan Rea has won two more races this season at Jerez.
In Race 1, Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) twice took the lead from second on the grid after separate crashes on Lap 1 saw the race restarted.
Marco Melandri overtook Rea on Lap 6 and looked set to win the race until his Aruba.it Ducati succumbed to a mechanical problem with four laps remaining.
That left Rea to win, ahead of Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Ducati) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team).
Rea was put back to ninth on the grid for Race 2, as per the 2017 race format, yet led the race by the end of Lap 1.
In practice, he needed until partway through Lap 2 to complete a move on Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha) and take over first position for good, but he was untroubled thereafter.
Van der Mark held onto second until Lap 5, when Davies passed.
However, Melandri relegated Davies to the final step of the podium with a move at the start of the penultimate lap.
The final round of the year is in Qatar on November 2-4 (local time).
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