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On Saturday evening, Inter Europol Competition secured second place in the 2024 edition of the European Le Mans Series. It was close in the end, and we can be proud of our season, of how we performed as a team, of the results gained through hard work, dedication, and determination from within the entire team.

Fourth position for the #43 of Sebastian Alverez, Vlad Lomko and Tom Dillmann was of little reward – or satisfaction – after a tough week in Portugal. The sister LMP2 Oreca of Ollie Gray, Clement Novalak and Luca Ghiotto played the team role ultimately and were fifth at the chequered following an early setback, of which they had no responsibility. In the end, just ten seconds covered the top five after four hours of hard racing.

As championship contenders with the #43, frustration arose when a penalty—a ten-second pitstop addition—was applied for an alleged virtual safety car infringement early in the race. The series soon rescinded this, but by then, we’d already pitted and served the penalty. Track position to our main championship rival had been lost, and small margins made a huge difference.

We had fast cars and were challenged for the title just a week after taking the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Road Atlanta. We were also content with our on-track performance heading to Sepang and the start of the Asian Le Mans Series in December.

The race itself brought many dilemmas for the championship contenders in each class. Ollie Gray was superb. After being turned around on the opening lap in the #34, he fought back nicely to ensure that the car—handed over to Clement and then Luca—was able to protect the #43 or, where required, push to apply pressure to the #14 ahead.

Ultimately, however, Inter Europol Competition will once again leave the ELMS season finale wondering what could have been. For the 60-plus Inter Europol Competition staff attending the Saturday night dinner, it was a season where we celebrated our championship challenge. The very fact that we’re disappointed with the outcome illustrates how far the team has progressed and how high our aspirations have become.

Tom Dillmann
“It was super frustrating from race control to get this penalty. We should have restarted the race P2 ahead of the AO and Panis car, but they made a mistake, and we had to restart P6. They rescinded the penalty two minutes after we had already taken it. I find it shameful at this level when you are going for the championship.

“We had a great race; Seb did a mega stint to bring the car to the front. Vlad was great, too; fastest lap, but track position is key. And the penalty took it away from us. Of course, we’ll never know what could have been, but for sure, without the penalty, we would have had more of a chance.”

Vlad Lomko
“Sometimes that’s how it goes, and everyone did a good job, and you cannot control everything. We pushed as hard as we could, and that is the result. There are many things to be proud of, and we did a very good job this year – not enough to win – but yes – we will all come back stronger.”

Sebastian Alverez
“I gave it everything I could. But for the penalty, the story could have been different, and the championship made a big mistake there. We had a good car, a good race and we could have done a good job, but in the end, luck was not on our side.”