American Le Mans Series
New B-K Motorsports Lola Coupe getting ready
© B-K Motorsports
Just over a week before the start of the next round of the American Le Mans Series B-K Motorsports has released the first picture of its brand new Lola B08/86 Mazda MZR-R COUPE. The car had its shaked down at Road America and will be making its debut at Petit Le Mans, where it will be the first coupe to race in the ALMS LMP2 class.
Here is what the team has to say about the car and the future:
- Car to debut at Petit Le Mans and will also race at the season finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
- Outnumbered by the Porsche & Acura forces by eight to one, Mazda has stepped up their program on the chassis side. While the Mazda AER developed MZR-R has shown great speed, the results to date have not reflected that potential.
- Aerodynamically the coupe is expected to have approximately 10% more downforce and 7% less drag. The air restrictor size will be increased to 45.6mm, but all coupes are required to run AC so power increase will be negated.
- The car will also feature a faster refueling mechanism and improved fuel collector to reduce pit stop time.
- The BP sponsored car remains on Dunlop tires with drivers Ben Devlin & Gerardo Bonilla. MAZDASPEED ladder poster boy, and former Skip Barber/Star Mazda/Atlantic and current Indy Lights champion Raphael Matos will rejoin the team for the Petit race.
John Doonan, MAZDASPEED Motorsports Team Development Manager: “This is the top rung of the MAZDASPEED Motorsports program and we needed to raise our efforts. The B-K team has already invested over 1200 hours into the assembly of the new car and we are optimistic about the final two races of 2008 and are already looking forward to the 2009 Sebring race.”
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That is a real P2 machine. Im tired of Penske sandbagging in LMP2. Raphael Matos is very fast.
Such a great looking car!
Nice looking package. I want ot see how it looks with the full livery. The RML Lola coupe was stunning. And it gained some speed with this chassis (keeping up with 3 RS Spyders).
Hopefully this team does gain some extra speed. But then again the RML team races against customer RS Spyders. Not so this BK team. Factory all the way. So we’ll see how they fare. Matos has to be the fastest guy in this lineup. But he probably won’t get the track time that the other 2 guys get since he’s on a part time basis with them.
Andretti Green should put him in their car if they come back in the ALMS next year. IT was amazing ghow he roasted teh whole field at the GRand Am rolex finale in Utah.
You really can’t fault Penske for simply building a great car.
Penske is just a huge team and ought to be in P1.
Is Mazda going to be only coupe for ALMS P2? Mazda already gives colorfull thing to the class like their livery. I hope they will show strong form with B08/86!
Penske would love to be in P1, but their contract with Porsche keeps them in P2 and restricts them to the ALMS.
Sweet looking car. Just like the RML and Charouz Lola’s. Must be a Lola thing.
Dont think they will trouble the Porsches or Acuras unless they hit trouble, purely because both the other marques are well established on a roll of good results.
Mazda need to spend more money on their program if they want their livery to be more endearing to the public.
But they just race in the ALMS to show that they have some kind of representation at the top level of motorsport. When you have a moto like zoom-zoom people expect you to.
From my consumer vehicle experiences, out of the japanese manufacturers only nissan/infiniti should have such a moto.
Mazda spends a lot of money supporting open wheel drivers. did they not spend money on the new coupe? Why is Raphael Matos no longer on the PLM entry list?
I can’t wait to see this new coupe version in action, Apparently something happened to it at Atlanta, so I never got to see it running.
As for Nissan/Infiniti having the Zoom-Zoom moto, can’t really Zoom-Zoom when your keyless entry malfunctions and locks you out, and they are missing from World Touring, Speed GT, any of the international Touring car championships, in fact they are missing from all the major motor racing events that Mazda are involved in….Last time I remember Nissan doing anything was way back with the C class prototypes in the late 80’s.
I guess as the LMP Lola Mazda get’s more good press the more involved Mazda will become, and start shoving more money into R&D.
So sad the crash Bonilla had at Petit. On the ALMS site he gave a video tour of the car and did flying laps driving impressions. It made me want to see the car in acton ever more. Too bad. Hopefully they come strong in Laguna.
About Nissan, I was talking about their road cars which is the real reason manufacturers race. Nissan has some of the zoomiest road cars. Any of their cars with at least a V6 will give you a satisfying drive. Very good bargain for the performance.
The engines used in the Indy lights is actually orginally designed by Nissan. It’s a 3.5 liter V8 version of the 4.5 V8 used in the M45 sedan. Because Nissan has pulled out of sponsorship the engine remains but is unbadged. So their engines still race.
Nissan is mainly out of racing because their parent company Renault is focusing all racing activites in F1.
This is not related to LeMans racing but with his 2 wins this year I think Alonso has good reasons to stay put. There’s other competitive drive available. Unless he feels he can do something for Honda.