Le Mans Series

LMS: Pegasus Racing ready for the fray!

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat

The young Pegasus Racing team proves its talent, tenacity and courage! While awaiting the arrival of the new Norma-Judd in its Strasbourg workshops, it entered its Courage-AER in the Le Castellet 8 Hours, the opening round of the 2010 Le Mans Series. The team lived up to its reputation by finishing the race, and its three drivers Julien Schell, Jean-Christophe Metz and Frédéric Da Rocha bagged the points that went with seventh place in the LM P2 category.

It’s been a pretty eventful few months for Pegasus Racing since the end of the 2009 season. The team was number one on the reserve list for the Le Mans 24 Hours, and has now been invited to take part in the Sarthe classic following the withdrawal of a Japanese entry. The Norma, which has been homologated by both the FIA and the ACO, is in the process of final assembly. However, the start of the season arrived and Pegasus Racing took the plunge and entered its 2-litre turbo Courage-AER for the first round of the Le Mans Series on the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit.

As things stand, the team runs the only one petrol-powered prototype powered by a turbocharged engine on the netry list. This technology has been abandoned because of the obligatory air restrictors, which heavily penalise top speed. On the 1,8-km Mistral straight on the Paul Ricard the Courage-AER-Pegasus really suffered! Otherwise, the Alsatian team gave a convincing display of its endurance knowhow, and finished a Le Mans Series race, as well as scoring points in the championship, for the fourth time on the bounce, which was not the case for all of its rivals!

In fact, the points haul was a big one. As the distance covered was over 1500 kms in the 8 hours race, the number was doubled. To achieve this, Schell, Metz and Da Rocha drove consistent stints only perturbed by a couple of technical glitches: ”As in Barcelona last year, the fuel pump began acting up; but we took just twenty minutes to pinpoint the problem and replace the defective part,” explains Schell. “We’re getting to know the weak points of the Courage. When Jean-Christophe came in with the gearbox stuck in third, that reminded us of Spa in 2009, and we took only five minutes to repair the supercharger connection which activates the gear selection.”

In the 2009 Spa-Francorchamps 1000kms, Pegasus Racing created a big stir by finishing fourth in the LM P2 category, in which 17 cars started. Rendezvous 7th-9th May to cheer on the underdogs in endurance, as they are determined to put on another giant-killing performance in the Ardennes!