24 Hours of Le Mans

Racing Box withdraws Le Mans entry!

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

During the second day of scrutineering at the “Quinconce des Jacobins” in the city centre of Le Mans it was confirmed that the Racing Box Lucchini has pulled out of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Instead of appearing at scrutineering the Italian squad was packing up their equipment and will soon head back to Italy.

An exact reason for the withdrawal has not been given but while the ACO mentions a non-conformity led to the team pulling out, the team told Racecar Engineering that ‘the suspension would not last for 24 hours’. Back in 2005 the Lucchini Engineering squad also withdrew its works car after the test day with technical problems.

In the last couple of weeks leading up to Le Mans the Racing Box entry was expected to withdraw and make place for the second Epsilon-Euskadi ee1 to be driven by Stefan Johansson, Shinji Nakano and Jean-Marc Gounon. At this point nothing is decided yet about this car. However, the second chassis is still at Le Mans, Racing Box had their pit box next to Epsilon-Euskadi and Johansson, Nakano and Gounon are currently at Le Mans.

ACO race director Daniel Poissenot has meanwhile contacted ‘a reserve entry’ and the name of a possible reserve will be announced on Wednesday morning. We wonder who that will be…

UPDATE: Statement of the ACO

The car had taken part in the test day on June 1st after the constructor of the chassis had filed, on May 30, a paper certifying that the chassis was in all respects identical to the one that was tested by the FIA in 2004. The situation on June 6, when Mr. Lucchini informed the ACO that certificate of conformity was no longer valid, adding that “a certificate can only be delivered after close inspection of the chassis at the Lucchini facilities”. As such inspection could not take place, the missing certificate meant that the car failed scrutineering and could note allowed to take part in the qualifying sessions.