Le Mans Series

The Planetlemans Valencia preview (GTs)

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

Although it is the smallest grid of the Le Mans Series, the GT1 class is certainly one where competition is strong and very close. The Corvette vs Saleen battle that colored the initial part of the Monza 1000 km is bound to be repeated but the Aston Martin teams should also be attacking for the top spot.

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

After the first race of the season the Luc Alphand Aventures team has shown that they are in a very strong position in this class. First and third position despite their unfortunate incident on Friday was a significant performance showing that the traditional endurance of the American monsters is also accompanied by very high speeds.

However Valencia is very different from the long straights of Monza and last year at the comparable Jarama circuit the winners were Stéphane Ortelli-Soheil Ayari in the Oreca Saleen, a car that will be a strong challenger at Valencia even when it retired last race with engine problems relatively soon into the afternoon. As a matter of fact the Oreca Saleen scored two victories at the FFSA double feature in Ledenon this weekend so they are in top shape. The other Saleen from Racing Box seemed to be still in the first development stages so we do not think it will be on the fight for top places.

But what about the Astons? Clearly the first Larbre car with Gardel-Bouchut-Gollin will be the main contender for the British marque. Even when their last performance was not in line with last year’s they still managed a second place and they are aiming for another championship. The other Larbre car is one step behind in terms of pace but can certainly grasp a podium place.

Last but not least Team Modena has local Antonio García as a key card to play since he knows the track very well. Next to the blond spaniard will be the only LMS racing lady Liz Halliday and the experienced Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi who will be warming up for his Le Mans drive with the British team.

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

GT2 seems to be following a similar path as its twin class in the ALMS: Ferrari domination. The GPC-Virgo-Villorba 1-2-3 at Monza was a pretty strong demonstration and the Porsches will have some work to do to get closer this time. Those three teams (including both GPC cars) have the potential to grab top spot also this time while the JMB and Ice Pol Ferraris were still not at that level.

Porsche still has the Lieb-Pompidou Felbermayr, Farnbacher and the IMSA Matmut 997s as their top challengers for this class and they are all in dire need of points. While in practice they were even with the 430GTs, the race did not see them as solid when as time went by and a 6^th place by IMSA was the best result for Porsche when the chequered flag fell.
LNT has again the best credentials on the Panoz camp, Chad Peninsula was way off the pace but it was only their first outing so we can expect further evolution. On the Spyker camp the works car will have a new partner for Jarek Janis since Peter Kox has a Silverstone FIA-GT commitment and the Speedy car will be also present with its regular Kane-Chiesa-Belicchi line-up. Both Dutch cars should do better at Valencia since this kind of track suits them much better than Monza.

Another close competition weekend for sure, the Astons and Porsches have respectively some room for improvement, let’s see if the Spanish sun suits them well, their opposition is still strong. Race is live on MotorsTV starting 13.30 CET (12.30 UK time), live timing at http://www.lemans-series.com

gabriel@planetlemans.com