Mammoth 42 Car Entry for ELMS Official Test

LMP2

The LMP2 class will see 14 cars at Le Castellet with 13 of the 15 full season entries announced last month in Paris making the trip to the South of France. The field will feature six Ligier JS P2s, two Oreca 05s, two Oreca 03Rs, two Morgans and one Gibson 015S run by G-Drive, with the 2015 championship winning Gibson of Greaves Motorsport choosing not to attend the test. 

Greaves Motorsport will be in France with the team’s second car, the no41 Ligier-Nissan with Mexico’s three time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona Memo Rojas joining forces with reigning LMP2 FIA World Endurance Driver’s Champion Julien Canal from France.

2015 LMP2 Vice Champions Thiriet by TDS Racing will be on home ground with Pierre Thiriet joining FIA WEC LMP1 Privateer Champion Mathias Beche and Japan’s Ryo Hirakama in the race winning no48 Oreca 05-Nissan.  In the no38 G-Drive Gibson, Simon Dolan will be joined by his race winning partner from 2015 Harry Tincknell, with the British duo sharing the testing duties with Dutch driver Giedo Van Der Garde.

French World Cup footballing legend Fabien Barthez begins his Le Mans Prototype career in the no 23 Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier-Nissan and is joined by fellow Frenchman Timothe Buret. 

There are three more all French entries for the test, the first is the no28 IDEC Sport Racing Ligier-Judd with Father and Son drivers Patrice and Paul Lafargue.  The second is the no22 SO24! By Lombard Racing with the team running the Judd powered Ligier for Vincent Capillaire and Olivier Lombard.  The final all French effort is the only car not on the ELMS full season entry. The no84 SRT41 by Oak Racing will be at Le Mans with a Morgan-Nissan for Frédéric Sausset and Christophe Tinseau.

The no40 Krohn Racing Ligier switches to Nissan power in 2016, with the American team keeping the same driver line up of Tracy Krohn, Niclas Jonsson and Olivier Pla.

The no29 Pegasus Racing Morgan-Nissan will be driven by four drivers during the two day event with four French drivers – Inès Taittinger, Rémy Striebig, Stéphane Raffin and Léo Roussel – testing for the German team.

The no33 Eurasia Motorsport team will be running an Oreca05-Nissan in 2016 with China’s Pu Junjin, Nico Pieter De Brujin from The Netherlands and French driver Tristan Gommendy sharing the driving duties for the Filipino team.

Algarve Pro Racing has only announced Michael Munemann for the Portuguese team’s no25 Ligier, with a second driver due to be announced.  The no34 Race Performance Oreca03R-Judd only has one driver announced, with the partner to Swiss driver Nicolas Leutwiler still to be unveiled.

Russian team SMP Racing will be running the BR01-Nissan, with Stefano Coletti, Julian Leal Covelli and Andreas Wirth sharing the driving.  Race winning Irish team Murphy Prototypes will once again field their Oreca 03R-Nissan with Michael Lyons and Marc Goossens in the driving seat for the two day test.

LMGTE

The LMGTE entry consists of seven of the nine full season cars, with five Ferraris joined in Le Castellet by one Porsche and one Aston Martin.

Reigning LMGTE Champions Formula Racing will once again run their race winning Ferrari 458 Italia for Driver’s Champions Johnny Laursen and Mikkel Mac.  The driver line up for the all Danish team will be completed by Christina Nielsen.

The two AF Corse run Ferrari 458s will feature familiar names in their driver crews.  The no51 Ferrari will be driven by Marco Cioci, Rui Aguas and Piergiuseppe Perazzini, while the no55 car will once again be driven by the Anglo-Irish trio of Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Aaron Scott.

The race winning AT Racing team from Austria will also compete with the Ferrari 458 with Alessandro Pier Guidi once again joining the Father and Son duo of Alexander Talkanitsa Senior and Junior.

The final Ferrari will be run by the all British JMW Motorsport team with Robert Smith and Rory Butcher in the driving seat.

The sole Porsche 911 RSR at the test will be run by Proton Competition, the German team leaving the no 88 car back home.  American Marc Hedlund will share the driving duties with German Marco Seefried.

Aston Martin Racing will complete the LMGTE line up with a Vantage V8 for 2015 British GT Champions Andrew Howard and Jonathan Adam.

LMP3

The LMP3 grid forms 50% of the entries for the 2016 ELMS Official Test, with 21 cars running at the Circuit Paul Ricard. Nineteen Ligier JS P3-Nissans will be joined by one Riley AR2 run by Irish team MurphyP3-3Dimensional.com for Venezuelan Doug Peterson and American Tony Ave.  The final car is a Ginetta-Nissan run by Slovakian team ARC Bratislava for Joey Foster, Miroslav Konopka and Christopher Zanella.

The no5 By Speed Factory team from Spain finished third in the 2015 championship and return in 2016 with a Ligier driven by Jesus Fuster and Alvaro Fontes.  Villorba Corse also competed in the 2015 championship with the all Italian team returning with a Ligier driven by Roberto Lacorte and Giorgio Sernagiotto.

In total there are nine French entries on the LMP3 grid with Oak Racing running two cars. The no4 Ligier for Jean-Marc Merlin and Erik Maris and the no24 car for Jacques and Pierre Nicolet.  After a successful first LMP3 race in Estoril last year, Graff will enter two cars in 2016, with Eric Trouillet, Paul Petit and Enzo Guibbert forming an all French team in the no9 Ligier, with Americans John Falb and Sean Rayhall joining Vicente Potolicchio in the no10 car.

Panis Barthez Competition will run an LMP3 Ligier alongside their LMP2 car from the same manufacturer in the 2016 ELMS, with Eric Debard, Valentin Maineault and Simon Gachet in the no16 machine.

Duqueine Engineering will also run a two car entry in the 2016 ELMS, with David Hallyday, David Droux and Dino Lunardi  in no19 and Romain Lanetta and Eric Clement being joined by Swiss driver Maxime Pialat in the no20 Ligier.  Ultimate and M.Racing YMR complete the French LMP3 entries with both teams featuring all French driver lineups in the no17 and no18 Ligiers.

United Autosports will fly the American flag in LMP3 this year, with a two car entry for Alex Brundle and Michael Guasch in the no2 car and Mark Patterson and Matt Bell in the no3 Ligier.

British teams 360 Racing and RLR MSport will be contesting the 2016 European Series with the no6 Ligier for all British driver lineup Terrence Woodward, Ross Kaiser and James Swift for 360 Racing.  Morten Dons, Ossy Yusuf and Ross Warburton will run the no15 RLR MSport Ligier.

Poland is represented on the ELMS grid for the first time by Inter Europol Competition, with Polish driver Jakub Smiechowski joined by German Martin Hippe.

Swiss team Race Performance are also running an LMP3 car alongside their LMP2 entry with an all Swiss line up of Marcello Marateotto and Giorgio Maggi in the no8 Ligier.  The second Italian team entered for the full 2016 season is Eurointernational who are running the no11 Ligier for Italian drivers Giorgio Mondini and Costantino Peroni.

In addition to ARC Bratislava, there is one further LMP3 entry for the ELMS Official Test that is not on the full season entry list. Dutch team Kox Racing will be joining the grid in Le Castellet and complete the 21 car entry for the 2016 two day test.

The 2016 ELMS Official Test

The Official Test will begin on the 22 March after a full day’s work by the teams arriving and setting up at Le Castellet.  A pre season static car photoshoot will be held at the track at 17h00 on Monday evening.

Track action will begin at 09:00 with the first test session, which will last for four hours.   At 13h00, during the lunch period, the official TV crew and photographers will conduct the special car to car shots around the Circuit Paul Ricard. 

After lunch, testing will resume at 14h00 for another four hours, with the chequered flag being waved at 18h00. After a one-hour break, teams will step back on track until 21h00, with the night session bringing the first day of track action for the 2016 ELMS to a close.

Testing resumes at 09h00 on Wednesday 23 March for another four hours in the morning, followed at 14h00 by a final three hour session of the 2016 Official Test.

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