Can Toyota or Porsche break Audi's stranglehold
upon Circuit de la Sarthe this year? As this year's 83rd running of le 24 Heurs
du Mans sees an up swell in the top flight LMP1 Prototypes entered, comprising
one-fourth of the 56-car field...
PROTOTYPES - P1
Class
(14-cars)
LMP1H
(Hybrid
category)
Once again, Audi seeks another victory vs.
rivals Toyota and Porsche, along with the return of Nissan with its radical
front wheel drive chassis. As Audi, Porsche and Nissan will enter three cars
apiece, while Toyota brings just two entries to France, as these four teams
will comprise the bulk of the top flight LMP1 category, all being Hybrids.
Audi
Chassis: R18 e-tron Quattro
Engine: 4.0-liter V-6 TDi (turbo
diesel)
(Car#/Drivers)
7) Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fasller and Andre Lotterer
8) Oliver Jarvis, Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi
9) , Marco Bonanomi, Felipe
Albuquerque and René Rast
Obviously, the biggest news is the retirement
of "Mr. Le Mans," aka Tom Kristensen, when the record winning nine
times 'Dane decided to hang up is helmet at the end of season last year. As Oliver Jarvis has been
promoted to Kristensen's full-time drive, while Rene Rast takes over Jarvis's vacated seat in
the third Le Mans entry.
Yet the defending 24-hours champion Audi
squad remains intact and the Audi's and their R18 E-tron Quattro's seem pretty
invincible at Le Mans with this year's chassis being a refinement of previous
year's winners.
Having won the 2015 season opener at
Silverstone this April, followed by another victory at Spa in May with both races
being won by the No. 7 crew who've won le 24 Heurs du Mans three-times under
the guidance of female engineer Leena Gade at the helm.
Alas, will Audi score its 14th overall victory or
is this the year that somebody, nee Toyota or Egads, Porsche finally beats
them?
Porsche
Chassis: 919 Hybrid
Engine: 2.0-liter V-4 turbo
(Car#/Drivers)
17) Timo Bernard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley
18) Romain Dumas, Neil Jani and Marc
Lieb
19) Nico Hulkenberg, Earl
Bamber and Nick Tandy
Porsche won its first WEC race at last year's
season finale in Sao Paulo, Brazil and is expecting more wins this year, having
given strong chase to Audi in the opening two rounds where the No. 18 has finished runner-up at both Silverstone
and Spa by a combined total of 17-plus
seconds after twelve hours of racing.
Its core full season driver line-ups remain
the same with the addition of Formula 1's Nico Hulkenberg spearheading the
third entry alongside two GT drivers, as the Kiwi Earl Bamber,
not to be confused with Brendon Hartley, has won championships in Porsche
Supercup and Nick Tandy is a well established 911Panzerwagon name...
Nissan
Chassis: GTR-LM NISMO
Engine: 3.0-liter V-6 twin turbo
(Car#/Drivers)
21) Tsugio Matsuda, Lucas
Ordóñez and Alex Buncombe
22) Harry Tincknell, Olivier Pla and Michael Krum
23) Max Chilton, Marc Gene and Jann
Mardenborough
This is the chassis that most intrigues Mwah,
as it immediately made me think of that 'Ol Panoz "Batmobile" front
engine Le Mans Prototype racer 'O Yesteryear, which I always thought was a very
kOOL car, even having gone so far to acquiring one in 1:18 Diecast scale way
back when...
The car's been designed by Ben Bolby of IndyCar Delta Wing fame, or was
it fury? Having read that the main design brief was make it something different
than a Audi copy, for which Bolby's done wonders with!
The team and car are in their infancy, with
an eclectic mix of nine drivers including past Formula 1 Aces, GT1 Champion and
Nissan Playstation Academy winners, who are not expected to win their debutant
Le Mans outing, but hopefully the
revolutionary chassis will put in a good initial showing this year.
Toyota
Chassis: TS040 Hybrid
Engine: 3.7-liter Normally Aspirated V-8
(Car#/Drivers)
1) Anthony Davidson, Sebastien
Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima*
2) Alexander Wurz, Mike Conway and Stephane
Sarrazin
(Test/Reserve Driver: Kamui Kobayashi)
The defending FIA World Endurance
Championship (WEC) series champions remain largely unchanged, with the only
major driver change being the addition of IndyCar winner Mike Conway with Kazuki
Nakajima switching to the No. 1 entry as
Nicolas
Lapierre's replacement.
The reigning WEC championship team looks somewhat
off the pace this year so far, having struggled to keep up with the increased speed
of the Audi's and Porsche's. Not to mention Nakajima suffered a broken vertebra
at Spa and realistically won't be healed in time, which probably will see
Test/Reserve Driver "K-Squared," aka Kamui Kobayashi,
a former Toyota, Sauber and Caterham Formula 1 driver filling in for his
injured countryman...
LMP1L
(Privateer/Non-Hybrid
category)
(Car#/Team/Drivers)
4) Kolles: Simon Trummer, Vitantonio
Liuzzi and Pierre Kaffer
12) Rebellion: Nicholas Prost, Nick Heidfeld and Mathias
Beche
13) Rebellion: Alexandre
Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Daniel Abt
There are three Privateer entries in the
LMP1L category, spearheaded by the mystery by Kolles CLM1 racecar, as in Dr.
Colin Kolles of Hispania, Force India and Spyker F1 fame along with Rebellion
Racing's usual two car entry, with all three chassis utilizing the AER V-6 biturbo
lump.
Cannot find anything substantive on Kolles
racecar which is denoted as a CLM1 which speculation suggests it stood for
Caterham Le Mans?
Although I liken
the C could stand for Dr. Colin Kolles instead, eh?
As it seemingly bears strong resemblance to
the Lotus T-129 or CLM P1/01 chassis, which were designed specifically for the
new LMP1L class, while apparently having some legal wrangling surrounding its
production. As these three racecars will have their own intra-class scrum for
non-Hybrid powered Privateer entries whilst the Factory Hybrid LMP1's are
definitely faster...
LMP2
(19-cars)
(Car#/Drivers)
28) Gustavo Yacaman,
Ricardo Gonzalez and Pipo Derani
30) Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel and David HeinemeierHanssen
31) Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek and John Fogarty
37) Mikhail Aleshin
40) Tracy Krohn, Niclas
Jonsson
Several names jumped out at Mwah in the LMP2
category; with its 19 entrants being the largest class at this year's Le Mans
race. As Gustavo
Yacaman is an ex-Indy Lights competitor with
'Rooskie Mikhail Aleshin racing for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports IndyCar team
last season.
Also from the states are Scotty Sharp &
Ed Brown's Extreme Speed Motorsports squad, which I previously noted their
switchover from the disappointing Honda ARX-04b chassis to Ligier JSP2's motivated by Honda instead, whilst Tracy
Krohn's Ligier Sports Car is Judd powered.
Interestingly, this class features two
Russian Flagged racing teams: G-Drive Racing (#26, 28) and SPM Racing (#27, 37)
with two cars apiece entered. As G-Drive
Racing appears to be run by France's LMP2 Constructor Oak Racing, with its #26
entry fielding a stout lineup of Russian
Roman Rusinov,
France's Julien
Canal and Great Brittan's Sam Bird, a past Russiantime GP2
series championship runner-up.
Current GP2 'Kiwi standout Mitch Evans will
co-drive Jota Sport's No. 38 and ex-F1 Indian driver Karun "Cowboy"
Chandhok will
pilot the #48, whilst I've overlooked another past name; Sweden's Bjorn Wirdheim,
co-driving the #41...
GTE-PRO (Professionals)
(9-cars)
(Car#/Drivers)
63) Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Ryan Briscoe
64) Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor
Should be another epic Tintops Scrum between
la Scuderia, nee Ferrari and Corvette with the usual smattering of Porsche
911's and Aston Martins.
Another noted Open Wheel Racing standout in
the class with numerous European Feeder Series drivers is GP3 New Zealander
Richie Stanaway chauffeuring the No. 99 Aston Martin...
GTE-AM (Amateurs)
(14-cars)
(Car#/Drivers)
53) Jeroen
Bleekemolen, Ben Keating and Marc Miller
62) William Sweedler,
Townsend Bell
77) Patrick
Dempsey, Patrick Long and Marco Seefried
Presuming that William is some gussied up
European idea for who we Stateside call Bill; Hya! As one entry list I'd
scanned had his name listed that way. Whilst "Peacock-lite" IndyCar
TV Booth Boy and Indy 500 competitor
Townsend Bell will be his normal co-driver with a third partner listed
as TBA, as the Scuderia Corsa makes up part of Ferrari's potent lineup.
"Dr. McDreamy," aka Patrick Dempsey
will race a Porsche 911 alongside
Factory Hotschue Patrick Long, while my sentimental favourite for class winners
without doubt is the No. 53 Riley Motorsports TI Automotive Dodge Viper, having
been elevated from its first reserve spot, as how can Yuhs root against the
iconic Dodge Viper at le Sarthe!
NOTE
Driver lineup's are not complete and subject to
change - as I've just gleamed what I could Pre-race via that A-L-L Knowing
& Always correct Zed Internetz...
Television
Surprisingly stumbled into the truncated
1.5hr FS1 (Fox Sports) airing of the Spa
6hrs race on May 2nd and watched a Humdinger, or as Jonathan Green
calls I-T; "A KuRR-RACKING RACE! Hooah! As the #7 Audi held off the #18
Porsche by the slender margin of some 13-seconds after a hard fought six hours
enduro, in which Messer Green noted that the next round, the Mack Daddy 'O
Endurance Racing, i.e.; Le Mans would be available on all of Fox's TV platforms...
AS ALWAYS! Check your local listings...
