Le Mans Series

LMS – 6 Heures Du Castellet – LMP1 Preview

© DPPI

This weekend the Le Mans Series will get its 2011 season underway at the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet, France. After its debut as an eight-hour race in 2010 the race will be ‘just’ six hours long this year, like every race on the 2011 calendar. Here’s our preview on the LMP1 class.

Last year Oreca and Audi were in control, but this year there will not be a diesel-powered LMP1 car on the track, but the opening race of the Le Mans Series season will see the new Aston Martin AMR-One making its competition debut as well as the return of the Pescarolo team. And the entire race will be shown live on Motors TV.

Unfortunately the exact entry list is far from clear with changing numbers and teams disappearing and reappearing every now and then. Our guess is that there will be six, possibly seven LMP1 cars on the grid.

Rebellion Racing will be the team taking a third of the LMP1 entries, the Swiss team entering a pair of Lola B10/60 Toyota’s for Nicolas Prost-Neel Jani (#12) and Andrea Belicchi-Jean Christophe Boullion (#13). The team already raced one of its cars at Sebring two weeks ago, albeit not one of the Le Mans Series cars, and drivers and mechanics were just waiting for new updates for the car to get it quicker.
Given the competition in LMP1 at Paul Ricard though the Rebellion Racing cars should be fighting for the overall victory.

All four (or five) other entries are either new to the LMP1 category, return to the Le Mans Series, bring a new car or have moved up from LMP1.

Aston Martin Racing is the only manufacturer team running in LMP1 and the British squad will bring its brand new Aston Martin AMR-One. The car was set to make its debut at Sebring, but development and construction meant that delay was postponed and it was instead moved to Paul Ricard.
After the beautiful swan that was the Lola Aston Martin the new AMR-One is more like the ugly duckling. While Aston Martin Racing will do its best to get a top result one has to realize that this is only the first ever race for the new car and it is very much part of the development phase of the new car, so that top result could well be a finish. On the latest entry list – dated March 21st – the line-up of the #009 is Stefan Mücke, Darren Turner and Harold Primat.

The fourth car in the LMP1 category is the Pescarolo 01 Judd of Pescarolo Team. After a year away from the track the team was ‘reborn’ and will return to the Le Mans Series this weekend. The car used is the same car the team raced in 2009, with a restricted Judd engine in the back. Christophe Tinseau and Emanuel Collard have returned to Pescarolo and with the addition of Julien Jousse the #16 car has a strong line-up. It was quick at the Official Tests and could well fight for the overall victory.

Another team that is used to racing at the front is Quifel-ASM Team. In recent years the Portuguese team and its Zytek were front-runners in the LMP2 class and for 2011 they have moved up into the LMP1 category. The team has a proven package with the Zytek chassis and engine, the Dunlop tires and Olivier Pla and Miguel Amaral. The #20 will be a real outsider for the opening round

Guess Racing Europ is the sixth team in the LMP1 category. Not much is known from the team and even between its first announcement and today much has changed. The Belgian squad announced its plans to enter the Le Mans Series at the end of last year. Back then they announced an entry with the former BK Motorsports Lola Mazda, but recently they have acquired one of the ex-Racing Box/MIK Corse Lola Judds. Belgian Philippe Hazebrouck will join experienced German Wolfgang Kaufmann in the Coupe. As the team did not take part in the Official Tests and will be on Cooper Tires (and not Cooper Tires European brand Avon) it remains to be seen what they can bring this weekend.

It is unclear whether the seventh LMP1 team will in fact take part at Paul Ricard. MIK Corse is on the most recent list – with a Zytek Hybrid. Ferdinando Geri is the only driver listed at the moment. At Sebring we learned that this project was still a WIP, so we’ll see…

One other LMP1 car will be at Paul Ricard, but it will not be racing. On Friday Hope Racing will present their Oreca 01 Lehmann Flybrid Hybrid. The team is set to run this car for the first time in the second Intercontinental Le Mans Cup round at Spa-Francorchamps. More on this during the weekend.