3rd place becomes 2nd after post race adjustments.
United Autosports scored two podiums in the final round of the European Le Mans Series at Portimao, as the #22 team of Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque finished second and the #2 crew of Wayne Boyd, Garett Grist and Tommy Erdos crossed the line third in Portugal.*
A multi-car crash and a heavy impact on the first lap for the #3 Ligier JS P3 of Christian England put him and team mate Andrew Bentley out of contention early on in the race. Christian was extricated from the car and taken to the medical centre. He was then taken to hospital for further assessment. The team are positive of a full recovery after Christian undergoes surgery on a broken ankle.
LMP3 Wayne Boyd started the #2 Ligier from 10th and Christian England started the #3 Ligier from seventh after qualifying the previous day, marking our final race start for the first generation Ligier LMP3 car in Europe. Unfortunatley, moments after the start Christian was caught up in a multi car accident caused by a spinning LMP2 car. Christian suffered a broken right ankle, lower leg and foot but is awake and talking in hospital awaiting an operation. Once the race resumed, Wayne in P7 soon moved up to P5 before another safety car period. Once racing again, Wayne grabbed two more spots to move to P3 before pitting the #2 and handing over to Garett Grist with just under two hours left to run. With 1h 43mins left, and with an FCY controlling track conditions, Garett pitted the #2 and handed the car over to Tommy Erdos, who left the pits just as the FCY came to an end. With just over an hour to go, another safety car was deployed and the leading LMP3 field darted into the pits, leaving Tommy at the front of the pack. Tommy pitted with 55 minutes remaining for fuel and a new set of tyres and headed back out on track, rejoining in second. At the end of the race, Tommy crossed the line third for the #2 crew’s fourth third place of the year.*
*In the post race results, the #2 LMP3 crew of Wayne Boyd, Garett Grist and Tommy Erdos were promoted to second in the standings. Results are still provisional pending championship appeals.
Provisional team championship positions:
[#2] Wayne Boyd, Garett Grist, Tommy Erdos 4th (71 points)
[#3] Christian England, Andrew Bentley, Mike Guasch 8th (25 points)
Wayne Boyd (GB), driver car #2, United Autosports: Born: Belfast, Northern Ireland. Lives: Templepatrick, Northern Ireland. Age: 29 “The start ofthe race was interesting. I haven’t started a race in a while. It was a bit chaotic and then obviously, what happened to Christian wasn’t good. Get well soon to him, no one likes to see anything like that. We were able to run in third place for the majority ofmy stint and we had good pace. Overall I’m happy as we started 10th so third isn’t a bad finishing point, which was then moved up to second. Four podiums out of six races isn’t a bad tally.”