ILMC
Team FS66 to enter Riley-Corvette C6 in ILMC?
© Team FS66
Team FS66 – known as Atlas eFX-Team FS in the 2010 season – has changed its plans for 2011. Instead of a GT and LMP program from the start of the season the team is now set to kick-off with a single GTE Am entry in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
Last year Atlas eFX-Team FS announced their intention to race a Panoz Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” and a Creation LMP1 in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Earlier this month it became clear that these deals did not materialize and the team, now renamed Team FS66, had to find another car.
The team has now announced it has found a car to run this season, the Riley-Corvette C6 that was previously entered in the American Le Mans Series by LG Motorsports. The car, which was recently moved to the National Corvette Museum but is still owned by Lou Gigliotti, is set to be entered in all the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup rounds this season.
At Sebring it will be raced by Tomy Drissi – who will also race at Le Mans and Petit – and two other drivers. Even though Team FS66 announced that Stephane Lemeret will partner Drissi at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, the Belgian driver was quoted saying that he had not signed a full-season contract with Team FS66 yet. A third driver for the full 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season is still to be determined.
Lou Gigliotti: “We will get the car next week. The team will work out of my shop in Dallas to get set for the Twelve Hours of Sebring. They will also use my transporter and equipment so they won’t have to ship theirs over. Then they’ll leave for Europe to compete in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup for the entire season.”
Dutchman Carlo van Dam, who was confirmed in a press release issued by the team back in 2010, will not be part of the squad that will race in Florida. The Dutchman could return to the team this season, but only for the three Euro rounds and the race in China.
In its latest press release the team also confirmed they are still looking at entering in the LMP category but not as early as Sebring. According to the release the team had a lot of help from Oreca to get the project running, but a spokesman from Oreca would only go on record saying that there had been some discussions between the French manufacturer and Norbert Walchhofer’s team.
The team changing names from Atlas eFX-Team FS to Team FS66 also seems to indicate that the title sponsoring of Atlas eFX was a one-year deal only. It remains to be seen if this affects the team in 2011. Given all the previous press releases and the actual outcome of all negotiations with manufacturers we definitely hope to see the Corvette in action in 2011, but will only believe it once it is rolled out of the trailer on the Sebring International Raceway in March.
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that is good, but kinda a waste considering they spent alot of money on the saleens for 2010 which were never going to be seen.
A bizarre choice of car, Corvette could have sold the team a privateer GT2 to be raced in Europe. It would have been a better solution for all parties! Oh well, another caron the grid can’t be bad, can it?
With the drop of the Panoz deal where does this leave Panzoz’s ILMC ambitions?
Good news, won’t be seeing that hideous panoz at la sarthe this year
The Program is making good progress, and all parties are working on making this a success, more anouncements to come forth soon, the car will be in Sebring.
- The Team will be running the full ILMC.
- The Riley GTE Corvette is a very good choice. It should
do well for a private team in the GTE /AM Class, it is
well engineered, as with everything else Riley does.
- Stephane Lemeret s resume speaks for itself, Tomy Drissi
has shown his speed and has experience, the third driver
will be anounced soon.
- Panoz has a great reputation and the quality of
everything they do and have done, speaks for itself. They
have been very gratious and honorable in all
negotiations, it just did not come together timely for
various reasons. PTG is one of the best Teams in the
business, and the car will do well when they choose to
run the car.
Pratt and Miller won’t sell a car to just anyone. They’re pretty selective. They want a strong team representing the brand at the highest level.
Given that LArbre has represented Aston Martin and won the LMS title, and the 24hr of lemans with saleen, and Atlas has yet to win anything, those are 2 different squads.
Besides the Pratt and Miller car would be more than the Riley car.
Wow, 5 corvettes (assuming larbre is running their second GT2 car as well) on the ALMS grid that’ll be a sight to see.
Larbre will not run a second Corvette at Le Mans.
i would honestly rather that riley than the factory car.
..would rather this be in the hands of Lou, but at least they sold it and can still race somewhere else…
Bizare choice of car? Not really, a decent GT2 car and a lot cheaper than the factory Corvette. Lou’s investment pays of a little (Very little but a start! Corvette should have helped him and not ditching the GT1 effort a year later and bypassing Lou altogether on the GT2 project… I am fan of Corvette, but this situation got out of hand by all efforts on both sides… Talking about making the GT cars cheaper… Well done Dough and Corvette!
At least Larbre will be back with a GT car in LMS/LM! Thought the Saleen was a sinking ship project! (As much as I loved GT1, it’s best to turn our heads to GT2…)
GM learned a lot over the years. One lesson for them is not to let a privateer develop your car when you have the means to do it yourself. If the caddilac LMP program had not been in privateer hands I believe it would still be alive (well at least until the diesels came).
That said GM couldn’t also afford investment that do not perform well given their financial position…so the best route was to do it themselves to make sure they could manage the process.
I don’t blame them, because I would have hated to see this program shut down under their cost cutting measures if a privateer effort performed poorly (i.e jaguar)
Andreas good to hear this very good news you are on suggess, and I am sure you will have a good season
regards peter suthaus
Does the man behind all of these teams ever give up, it appears not. Although there appears to be many who maybe will not be encouraging him to race this year.
Team FS66 – known as Atlas eFX-Team FS last year was known as Fullspeed racing in 2009 and B Racing previosuly. You ask why the name appears to change so regularly!!