36 Cars for ELMS Season Opener at Silverstone

Six of the cars and nineteen of the drivers will be racing with the Union Flag flying above their garages, including one of the 2016 championship winning teams and three of the reigning drivers champions. 

Reigning LMGTE Champions Beechdean AMR, with drivers Andrew Howard and Darren Turner, will begin the defence of their titles at home in the UK.  The 2016 LMP3 championship winning team, United Autosports, races under the Stars and Stripes of the USA but is based in the UK, so can claim Silverstone is their home race, while 2016 LMP3 Drivers Champion Christian England returns to defend his title racing with fellow Brit Wayne Boyd and American Mark Patterson.

First ELMS race for the new LMP2 cars

In LMP2 12 cars will be on the grid with the new for 2017 technical regulations seeing a marked increase in performance compared to the 2016 cars.  There are three different chassis manufacturers – Oreca, Ligier and Dallara - all powered by the same UK built and prepared Gibson engines.  Tockwith Motorsports are flying the flag for Britain with Nigel Moore and Phil Hanson driving the team’s Ligier for the first time in race action.

Reigning 2016 champions G-Drive Racing will run the Oreca07 chassis with an all new driver line up of Memo Rojas (Mex), Ryo Hirakawa (Jpn) and Leo Roussel (Fra) for the Russian team.

Race winner Ben Hanley will once again race for US team Dragonspeed, the Briton joining an unchanged driver line up of Nicolas Lapierre (Fra) and Henrik Hedman (Swe).

Richard Bradley is the fourth British driver on the LMP2 grid, the former 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 winner driving for French team Graff alongside James Allen (AUS) and Franck Matelli (Fra).

17 cars in LMP3

A mammoth grid of 17 cars will make up the LMP3 class at the opening race of the 2017 season.  With Christian England and Wayne Boyd there a further four British drivers in LMP3, making six in total.  360 Racing will once again run their Nissan powered Ligier JS P3 for all British line up of drivers – Terrence Woodward, Ross Kaiser and Anthony Wells.  

The second British team on the LMP3 grid is RLR MSport with Alex Kapadia flying the flag for the home crowd and is joined by Canadian John Farano and Dane Morten Dons in the Ligier-Nissan.

LMGTE: Three team to fight for a victory at home

Three of the seven cars on the LMGTE grid count Silverstone as their home race, including reigning champions Beechdean AMR.  Andrew Howard and Darren Turner are joined by former British GT4 Champion Ross Gunn to complete an all British line up. 

Their 2016 rivals for the title, JMW Motorsport, also return to continue the fight.  Englishman Rob Smith and Rory Butcher are joined by fellow Briton Jody Fannin for this year.

2016 Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup Champions TF Sport are competing in the LMGTE class in 2017 with Euan Hankey flying the flag alongside Turkey’s Salih Yoluc and Danish reigning FIA WEC LMGTE Champion Nicki Thiim.

The final two British drivers on the grid are Duncan Cameron and Aaron Scott, who will once again be joined by Ireland’s Matt Griffin in an unchanged driver line up from last season in the Spirit of Race run Ferrari F488 GTE.

The 4 Hours of Silverstone will take place on Saturday 15 April and is the opening round of the 2017 European Le Mans Series. 

CLICK HERE to see the provisional entry list for the 4 Hours of Silverstone