Victory for Panis, podium for Pin, tragedy for Doohan at ELMS 4H Barcelona

The European Le Mans Series 4 Hours of Barcelona was won by the Forestier Racing by Panis #29 ORECA, driven by Esteban Masson, Oliver Gray, and Louis Rousset. They bounced back from penalties and snatched the lead with under 10 minutes to go. Fantastic race.

As usual in the ELMS, there are a lot of well known young hopefuls trying to stand out, and a few of them did. Doriane Pin — much to her fans’ delight — returned to sports cars, and she, Richard Verschoor, and Giorgio Roda ran up front all race long and landed on the LMP2 ProAm class podium for Duqueine Team. Jamie Chadwick, still stuck in ELMS while her coworkers go on to warm up her Genesis Hypercar seat for her, finished fourth outright for IDEC Sport with Laurents Hörr and Valerio Rinicella.

The big bummer of the race, I’m sorry to say, was the fate of Jack Doohan. This was his first race since all that messy Super Formula stuff fell through, and when he got in, he brought the car into the top five and briefly led the race. The fight was on for second place all the way to the end, but after light contact making the pass for P2, something went wrong with the right rear with one minute to go, and Jack limped across the line in sixth. The team got a 10-second penalty post-race for speeding under full-course yellow, demoting them to P7.

Chin up, Jack. There’s more racing to go.