Analysis

Planetlemans LMS 1000KM of Catalunya GT preview

The Le Mans Series GT battle is heating up, after a winter full of testing Porsche seems to be ready to fight the Ferrari’s that were so dominant in 2007 in GT2 while in the GT1 category the championship winning Saleen has changed owners and will again fight the other GT1s. The 1000 kilometers of Catalunya will reveal where every team stands.

Unfortunately only five LM GT1s will be seen in action at the Circuit de Catalunya, but the positive thing is that there is at least some diversity in cars, as no less than four different manufacturers have a car in the race. If the Saleen will be as reliable in the hands of Larbre Competition as it was last year with Team Oreca this car is a serious candidate for the win at Barcelona. During the official test days at Paul Ricard the Larbre Saleen was however second fastest as the #72 Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R beat it. The Corvette and the Saleen were separated by just over a tenth of a second in France, a promising battle for the GT1 win lies ahead in Spain.

While we expect the lead Alphand Corvette and the Larbre Saleen to fight for the race wins, the battle for third place could also become very interesting. The InterProgress Bank Lamborghini and #73 Alphand Corvette ended the pre-season test very close to each other, but while the Corvette C6.R is known to be able to last the distance the Lamborghini has a reputation that is not as good as the Corvette. Finally Team Modena. The team was a midfielder in 2007 behind the Team Oreca Saleen and the lead Alphand and Larbre cars. If they finish behind those cars again they will be on the podium on several occasions. With Enge and Garcia on board they have an expierenced line-up, but what can they do against the second Alphand Corvette and even the Lamborghini?

No less than thirteen LM GT2 cars will make the trip down to Spain. Defending champions Virgo Motorsport will return to the series with the Ferrari 430 GT2 but they can expect fierce opposition from the Porsche 997 GT3 RSRs that are entered by Team Felbermayr-Proton Farnbacher Racing and IMSA Performance Matmut. The four teams will do their best to clinch the win at Barcelona and have entered top driver pairings. Virgo has entered Gianmaria Bruni and (2007 champion) Rob Bell, Felbermayr-Proton has signed Marc Lieb and Alex Davison, Farnbacher Racing has taken Porsche factory driver Richard Westbrook and Allan Simonsen while IMSA Performance Matmut will join the battle with Raymond Narac and Richard Lietz. In pre-season testing the top GT2 cars were about two seconds quicker than the other cars so, if all things go well, the fight for the win in Barcelona will be between these four teams.

The opening round of the 2008 season also marks the arrival of the Aston Martin Vantage GT2. At the moment we wrote this preview no announcement was made regarding the drivers that will race the car in Spain and knowing that the test mule will be entered there are no real expectations for this car yet. Spyker will once again be in the Le Mans Series but 2008 is going to be completely different. The familiar silver and orange livery has been dropped in favor of a new blue and yellow livery, the name of the factory team has been slightly adjusted to SNORAS Spyker Squadron and the C8 Spyder GT2R has been replaced with the C8 Laviolette GT2R. For the first time since joining the Le Mans Series the team will not have a Dutch driver in the line-up.

The other cars, like the second entries of IMSA, Felbermayr-Proton, Farnbacher (a Ferrari 430), James Watt (a Porsche 997) and the Speedy Racing and JMB Racing teams will only be racing in Barcelona to get some points as a podium finish seems to be unrealistic. Only if the top teams hit problems these teams will have a chance to be spraying champagne at the end of the 1000 kilometers.

UPDATE 3-4-2008: The JWA Vantage has also arrived at Barcelona. This car will be driven by Stéphane Lemeret and Alan van der Merwe. There will be a third driver, but the team members at the circuit were unable to confirm his name. Earlier today it was confirmed that Markus Palttala and Mikael Forsten will replace Joel Camathias and Tim Sugden in the JWA Porsche.