Le Mans Series

LMS – 6 Heures Du Castellet – LM GTE Preview

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Once again the GT field in the Le Mans Series is one of the best in the world. Quality drivers and teams will be fighting for the drivers and teams championships in the LM GTE Pro and LM GTE Am categories. The GT1 category has been dropped.

Le Castellet will be the place where the new Ferrari F458 Italia will make its European competition debut. Unfortunately there will be no Spyker or BMW on the grid, Spyker Squadron taking a year off to work on the new 2012 car and BMW Motorsport committing itself to the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

AF Corse will field two F458 Italia’s in this years LM GTE Pro category, with top drivers in each car. The #51 entry will be driven by Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni, the other car (#71) will be driven by Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander. Despite the fact that the F458 Italia has only competed in one race, at Sebring, and is still at the very beginning of its life cycle the AF Corse cars and crews should be able to race for victories.

The third Ferrari F458 Italia on the grid in France will be the #66 JMW Motorsport entry. After a season with Aston Martin the British team will return to Ferrari. The team collected its new yellow car just a few days ago, but everyone is ready for the new season. Rob Bell will once again race for JMW Motorsport, he will be joined by Le Mans Series newcomer James Walker. Like in recent years the car will run on Dunlops.

Finally Hankook Team Farnbacher. Dominik Farnbacher and Allan Simonsen will team up once more in their fight for the Le Mans Series title. Last year the #89 Ferrari was involved in too many incidents, which cost them dearly. It remains to be seen how the new car will do on Hankook rubber, the team tested with its old Ferrari F430 GT2 last month.

Porsche will have three of its 997 GT3 RSRs to fight the Ferrari armada, all with highly professional drivers onboard. Reigning champion Team Felbermayr-Proton will run the #77 Porsche for Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz, IMSA Performance Matmut wil run the #76 Porsche for Patrick Pilet and Wolf Henzler and ProSpeed Competition will run the #75 for Marco Holzer and Marc Goossens. While the Felbermayr-Proton needs no introduction and will be spearheading the Porsche effort, the Pilet-Henzler car could bring IMSA Performance Matmut back to the top step. ProSpeed’s Goossens and Holzer will be outsiders.
A fourth Porsche team was set to race at Le Castellet, but earlier this week it was announced that Stephen Jelley would not race in France and the latest information we received is that the team will indeed skip the first round.

Next to the four Ferraris and three Porsches there will be two Aston Martin Vantages on the grid. Young Driver AMR will enter one car for its GT1 drivers Tomas Enge and Darren Turner, who will be joined by Christoffer Nygaard. For now the 6 Heures Du Castellet is the only race scheduled for the German squad, which is still on the Le Mans reserve list and uses this race as preparation for the 24 Hours. The second Aston Martin Vantage in the series will be run by Jota AMR. The #79 Vantage will be driven by Sam Hancock and Simon Dolan.

In the GTE Am category there will be six cars competing for the class honours. Four Ferrari F430 GT2 cars and two Porsches 997 GT3 RSR will be racing – hoping to win the class and upset some of the GTE Pro teams.

Next to the two GTE Pro entries AF Corse will run two F430 GT2s for Perazzini, Cioci and Lemeret (#61) as well as Kauffman and Aguas. Decent driver line-ups and a decent team should mean these driver pairings should be able to fight for victory in GTE Am, but the opposition is tough.

IMSA Performance Matmut will enter a Porsche for Raymond Narac and Nicolas Armindo, a duo with lots of experience and once again a good team behind them. But there are more interesting entries like the 2009 International GT Open champions Broniszewski and Peter in the Kessel Racing Ferrari F430 GT2. The team will race at Paul Ricard for what is apparently a look at the Le Mans Series and preparation for the new GT Open season.

The final two entries are familiar names. CRS Racing will again enter a car in the full Le Mans Series, the British squad entering a Ferrari for Klaas Hummel, Adam Christodolou and Phil Quaife, while Team Felbermayr-Proton will field the #88 Porsche for Horst Felbermayr Sr and Jr and Christian Ried.