The strongest LMP2 operation in Europe has turned a spec chassis category into a season long advantage, and the reason is entirely operational.
LMP2 is a single chassis, single engine, single tyre formula. Every car in the class is an Oreca 07 with the same power, and the performance window between the fastest and tenth fastest crew across a four hour race is usually under half a second per lap. In a field like that, championships are won in the pit lane and in the driver line up.
United Autosports have built their season on both. Their pit stops have averaged inside the class benchmark all year, and, more importantly, they have not had a single stop go wrong. In a four hour race with three mandatory stops, one fumbled wheel gun is the difference between a win and fourth place.
The Red Bull Ring double was the clearest demonstration. The circuit is short enough that traffic is constant and the pit cycle delta is small, which removes most strategic options. Both races were decided by the out lap after the second stop, and both times the car left the pit box with tyre temperature timed to give peak grip exactly where the class rivals were still building it.
The driver pairing matters as much. Hanson has been in the class long enough to know where a bronze rated rival will lift, and the crew has consistently placed its fastest driver in the traffic heavy middle stints rather than saving him for the finish, a decision that has repeatedly gained more than a late charge could.
ELMS titles are rarely settled before the final round, and the remaining calendar includes two circuits where the class order has historically reshuffled. But the pattern of this campaign is a team that does not make errors, and in LMP2 that is the only sustainable advantage available.
The 2026 European Le Mans Series standings capture the state of play recorded After Round 3, 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring. Phil Hanson / Tom Blomqvist leads the drivers classification on 87 points, 9 clear of Job van Uitert / Robert Kubica on 78, with Matthieu Lahaye / Eric Trouillet third on 69. A lead of 9 points is a meaningful cushion at this stage of the year, but with 2 rounds still to run it is not yet a decisive one. The championship will be settled by how the front runners negotiate the rounds that remain, not by the margin they carry into them.
Behind the leading group the field is tightly compressed. François Heriau / Simon Mann holds fourth on 63, Mikkel Jensen / Steven Thomas is fifth on 58, and Daniel Schneider / Stefan Mücke completes the top six on 51. The spread across those three positions is just 12 points, which means a single strong weekend can reshape the order behind the title contenders. The midfield battle is where the championship depth is most visible, and where the cost of one bad round is highest.
In the teams classification, United Autosports leads on 87 points from Inter Europol Competition on 78 and TF Sport on 69. The teams standings are often the more reliable indicator of outright pace, because they smooth out the individual bad weekends that every driver encounters across a full season. A team that places both its entries consistently in the points will accumulate constructors score at a rate that single car brilliance cannot match.
The depth of the teams championship reflects how competitive the European / Asian Le Mans Series grid has become. United Autosports holds the lead on 87 points, but the gap to Inter Europol Competition on 78 is small enough that a single double points finish can close it. Behind them, TF Sport sits third on 69, close enough to capitalise if either of the top two stumbles. The constructors race is a long game, and it rewards reliability over heroics.
The recent rounds have done most to shape the current standings. 4 Hours of Le Castellet at Circuit Paul Ricard, France was won by Hanson/Blomqvist, 4 Hours of Imola at Autodromo di Imola, Italy went the way of van Uitert/Kubica, and the most recent completed round, 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring at Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, was won by Hanson/Blomqvist. Each of those results shifted the points arithmetic at the top and reset the momentum that the title contenders carry into the next weekend.