Império Endurance Brazil: the Ligier JS P320 continues to gain ground in Brazil!

BTZ Motorsport's pink and green Ligier JS P320 scored another podium finish in the third round of the Império Endurance Brasil Championship. On 25 June, the #117 LMP3 came home second in the event held in the Velopark and is romping away with the championship! Two other Ligier teams running JS P320s have recently joined the Brazilian adventure and are beginning to carve out a place for themselves.

• There were three Ligier JS P320s among the nine sports prototypes in the P1 category: BTZ Motorsport's #117 (Gaetano Di Mauro and Guilherme Bottura), FTR Motorsport's #18 (Cláudio Ricci and Fernando Poeta) and #9 run by Mattheis Motorsport (Xandinho Negrão and Marcos Gomes) having its first race in the championship. It is supported by Swiss team COOL Racing already competing in the ELMS and the Michelin Le Mans Cup.

• The start of the Velopark Three Hours was given late on Sunday morning. The #9 Ligier JS P320 was third on the grid, #117 was seventh and #18 eleventh.

• The #9 Ligier JS P320 took the lead at the end of the first hour of the race. It dominated for 40 minutes before falling back to second. Then a GT had a major accident, which led to the race being interrupted with 1h 4mn left to run.

• On the restart, the #9 Ligier JS P320 was still second followed by #117 that began to eat into the gap separating it from Mattheis Motorsport's #9, which had to pit for repairs a few minutes later.

• The #117 Ligier JS P320 entered by BTZ Motorsport crossed the finishing line in second place scoring another podium after its victory in Goiânia in the previous round. Mattheis Motorsport's #9 took sixth place after a race full of promise for the remainder of the season. Due to a mechanical issue #18 failed to see the chequered flag.

• #117 retains the lead in the championship with 80 points in hand over its nearest rival.

• “We came to the Velopark thinking about the championship, so we prioritized reliability and strategy, said Guilherme Bottura. It feels great to go back home leading the board.” Gaetano Di Mauro added : “We were concerned as this circuit does not have high speed corners, which is one of strengths of the JS P320 over other prototypes. However, we were consistent throughout the race, with no errors, and now we go to the next race leading the championship.”

The next race will be held on 23rd September at Goiânia.

 

For more information about the Ligier JS P320, CLICK HERE.