EPIC COMEBACK FOR CAR GUYS CREW AT ELMS FINALE!
Last week’s 4 Hours of Portimão race was the final round of the 2025 European Le Mans Series and it served as a fitting finale to what was a strong season for the Car Guys Kessel Racing team and the #57 Ferrari crew of Ben Tuck, Daniel Serra and Takeshi Kimura, where they staged a superb comeback to finish seventh from the back of the field after an incident at the start. The result meant that Tuck finished fifth in the drivers’ standings alongside Kimura-san having twice stood on the podium and claimed fastest lap of the race.
Heading into the final round, the #57 car was still mathematically in the title fight but needed a smooth weekend and strong result. Takeshi Kimura took care of the qualifying session and placed the car in a creditable fifth place on the grid, in which he would also take the first driver duty.
Portimão’s demanding undulating layout often generates action and incident and unfortunately Kimura-san fell victim to such an incident on lap 2 leaving him in 13th place, 8 seconds back from the rest of the pack. However, with characteristic determination, he began to reel in the rest of the field and after an hour and ten minutes, he was back up to seventh position.
Ferrari pro driver, Daniel Serra continued the fight back having dropped back after the pit stop, handing the car over to Ben Tuck after an hour in seventh position.
Again, dropping back after the pitstop, Ben quickly began to close on his competitors. With 30 minutes to go Tuck had climbed back to seventh and was closing a 10 second gap to the car ahead. By the final lap he’d reduced the deficit to 3 seconds, having also closed on the leaders by more than 10 seconds, but it was not enough to make a place, and he brought the car home in seventh place.
The result concluded a strong but variable season for the crew of the bright yellow #57 Ferrari, with two podiums, two fastest laps and a fourth-place finish but it also featured a DNF after a race ending collision when Kimura-san was left with no way to avoid an accident in front of him at Imola.
Looking back on the race and his ELMS season, Ben commented: “Reflecting on a difficult end to the season in ELMS, I want to say a huge thank you to Kimura-san, CarGuy and Kessel for an extremely enjoyable season together. The results don’t reflect our potential and pace across the year, but I loved every minute racing with this team and my teammates!”
Ben wraps up his 2025 racing season in Bahrain on 8th November in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
