Michele Beretta claims the win in the last round of the European Le Mans and the title of Champion in the GTE class together with Team Proton Competition and its Porsche 911 RSR, a win shared with his teammates Christian Ried and Alessio Picariello.

The weekend that closed the European Le Mans Series took place at the Autodromo do Algarve (Portimao, Portugal) which was an emotional ending to a roller-coaster season. In order to fill the gap from the standing leaders, Beretta-Picariello-Ried could only aim for one thing, the win.

From the free practices thy focused all on race pace: from the second row of the grid, the Proton Competition drivers had a race that in the first two hours wasn’t so easy. Fighting for the lead, both Ried and Beretta were forced to a early call for the pit-stop, with the left rear tyre damaged. The race came to a final showdown just in the last 90 minutes, where the #77 Porsche got the leadership, keep untile the chequered flag.

A totally deserved trophy that arrives at the end of a sensational season, with two wins and lot of podiums.

“It turned out in the best way possible. Over the course of the championship we threw away a few points and here we just had to win. We knew we were competitive from practice, but in the race we had problems with unexpected pitstops, which our competitors had as well. In the long runs in practice we didn’t have any kind of problem with the tyres. Today, surprisingly, there have been these problems and I had been slowed in my stint. We were good with the strategy and this, in addition to a bit of luck, allowed us to recover and go on to win. In the last hour we had a one-minute lead that allowed us to make a tyre change to be on safer side in the final laps. I am very happy, the team has done a great job at every race, giving us a car that was always competitive. In practice we gave away a little bit of competitiveness compared to the Ferrari, but the race pace has always been very fast and the final result rewards us. I want to thank my teammates, Alessio and Chris, the whole team and my sponsors. Thank you all.“