Matt Bell Finishes P4 at Barcelona ELMS Round 1

We said we’d update you after every round. Round 1 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is done.

The #11 Eurointernational car of Matt Bell, Douwe Dedecker and Max Van der Snel ran at the front of the LMP3 class for most of the four hours before a 0.091-second pit lane infringement at the final stop triggered a one-second stop-go penalty that dropped the car from P3 to P4 at the flag.

The LMP3 class at Barcelona

The European Le Mans Series LMP3 class is a fiercely competitive prototype championship featuring professional and semi-professional drivers racing identical Toyota-powered cars across six of Europe’s best circuits. The category serves as a direct pathway to the top levels of endurance racing, with the LMP3 champion earning an automatic invitation to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans the following year.

Each crew must include a Bronze-rated driver, defined by the FIA’s driver grading system. In the #11 Eurointernational entry, Matt holds the Bronze rating alongside Silver-rated co-drivers Douwe Dedecker and Max Van der Snel. In a four-hour race, Matt completes a minimum 1-hour 45-minute stint, with Dedecker and Van der Snel sharing the remaining driving time.

The race itself was interrupted early when a multi-car incident at turn one took out the #4 DKR Engineering and #17 CLX Motorsport cars, both of which restarted after repairs but were several laps behind the class leaders. CLX had been one of the pre-season favourites after dominating LMP3 in 2025 with five wins from six races, so the early incident effectively removed one of the #11’s main championship rivals from contention.

At the restart, Matt moved up to P2, chasing the #85 R-ace GP entry, which had been fast all weekend. Once the pit stop sequence had cycled through, the #11 was in P2 and closing. Then at the final stop, the car left the pit box 0.091 seconds early. The one-second stop-go penalty that followed dropped the #11 behind the #13 Inter Europol Competition car, which had run steadily through the field, and they finished fourth.

The LMP3 class result: 1st Rinaldi Racing (#5), 2nd R-ace GP (#85), 3rd Inter Europol Competition (#13), 4th Eurointernational (#11).

In Matt’s words

“My co-driver Douwe qualified P7, which became P6 after a technical infringement on another car. It didn’t concern me. In both previous ELMS seasons I was used to starting around P8, and if anything, I enjoy the first lap challenge this series gives you.

I felt good going into the race. I moved through the field quickly and was confident I’d be sitting P3 by the end of lap one. That’s exactly where I was when the red flag came out. At the restart, I pushed on, worked my way up to P2 and got into a real battle with the R-ace GP entry, who had been fast all weekend.

Unfortunately, I’d locked the front tyres on the warm-up lap and picked up a flat spot that got progressively worse across my stint. I also had no water in the car for the entire race. Not ideal. But we were running comfortably in P2, and once the pit stops had cycled through, we were right on their tail.

Then, at the final stop, the car left the pit box 0.091 seconds early. A one-second stop-go penalty followed, and that was that. P4 at the flag from a race where we had the pace to be much higher.

There’s a lot to work on before Paul Ricard. The pace is there, and that’s the most important thing at this stage of the season.”

What’s next

Round 2 is at Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, France, on 3 May 2026. Paul Ricard is one of the most technically demanding circuits on the calendar, a flat, high-speed track in the south of France with the long Mistral straight placing a premium on aerodynamic efficiency and tyre management. It will be a very different challenge from Barcelona.