Le Mans Series

The Planetlemans LMS Paul Ricard Test Days preview

© Planetlemans – Gerlach Delissen

The Official Test session of the Le Mans Series will take place this weekend at the Paul Ricard High Tech Test Track at Le Castellet. Twenty-eight cars are entered for the traditional season opening test days and there will be several premieres in Southern France.

Aston Martin Racing will debut its brand new Lola Aston Martin at Paul Ricard. Both cars, recently completed in the UK, will be in action in the iconic Gulf livery. Paul Ricard will see the first public run of both cars. Team Oreca Matmut will continue testing the new AIM engine in the back of the LC70’s, while also supporting Le Mans Series newcomer Signature Plus in their first official test session with their LC70.

For Speedy Racing-Team Sebah a new era starts at Paul Ricard. Having already raced a Lola coupé in 2008, the team will officially unveil their 2009 LMP1 and LMP2 Lola cars and drivers with the brand new chrome/red and chrome/blue colours.

Ginetta-Zytek will have two Zytek 09S running in France. Strakka Racing and Quifel-ASM Team will run their LMP1 and LMP2 cars. Even though the liveries and drivers for these cars are known already, it will be nice for the British and Portuguese teams to test with their opponents.

Pegasus Racing is another newcomer in the Le Mans Series making its debut at Paul Ricard. Entering an LMP2 Courage LC75 AER the French squad will face five rivals as it prepares for a new challenge.

In GT1 ARC Bratislava-Kaneko will run the Saleen S7Rs. Though there is only one on the list for the weekend the team has already said it will bring two cars and run one each day. The former Larbre/Oreca Saleen could become a nice addition to the GT1 field. At Paul Ricard only IPB Spartak Racing and Luc Alphand Aventures join the Saleen.

Twelve GT2 cars will make the trip to France and even though not all the cars planned to take part in the Le Mans Series will be there, all marques are represented at Paul Ricard. Next to the Le Mans Series regular entries from the last couple of years there are some highlights.

Reiter Engineering will debut its Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 and all eyes are on the first run of the car. Easyrace will enter a Ferrari F430 GT2 in the LMS after competing in selected FIA GT rounds in 2007 and 2008. Team Modena, having raced in GT1 before, will also be out in the first public test session with their newly acquired Ferrari. Drayson Racing has joined the series from the ALMS and will be the only Aston Martin team in GT2 at Paul Ricard.

Porsche and Ferrari will as well be represented by their regular teams, with the only two other highlights there the introduction of Hankook to the Le Mans Series (Farnbacher) and a new livery and drivers at Virgo Motorsport after a lot of team members went on to JMW Motorsport.

So far the weather forecast looks good, considering it is only March. The average daytime maximum temperature will be around 13 degrees Celcius, with the highest temperature expected to be reached on Sunday afternoon (16°C). On Sunday sunny skies are expected with cloudy skies on Monday completing the weekend…fortunately no rain.

And finally…the test days at Paul Ricard are open for spectators. With a new grand stand completed just in time for this session the track can now host 4,000 spectators. Children under 10 years come in free. For people older than ten years the tickets costs € 15,00.
There is a pit walk and autograph session planned on Sunday between 1.35pm and 2.15pm.

Timing:

Sunday – March 8
9.30am – 1.30pm – morning session
1.35pm – 2.15pm – pit walk & autograph session
2.30pm – 6.30pm – afternoon session
6.30pm – 0.00am – night session

Monday – March 9
9.00am – 1.00pm – morning session
2.00pm – 5.00pm – afternoon session

The entrylist for the Paul Ricard Test Days can be found here.

Make sure you’ll get back to Planetlemans for updates from the circuit this weekend!