2016 Gets Underway with Massive 45 Car Grid at Silverstone

The 4 Hours of Silverstone will take place on the full 5.901km Grand Prix circuit on the same schedule as the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The LMP2 grid will consist of 15 entries plus one for the SRT41 by Oak Racing Morgan-Nissan in the Innovative Car category. 

In 2015 Greaves Motorsport got their championship winning season off to a good start with a win on home turf at Silverstone.  In 2016 the will be hoping for a repeat performance with their new Ligier JS P2-Nissan they are running for multiple Daytona 24 and 12 Hours of Sebring winner Memo Rojas, reigning FIA WEC LMP2 Drivers’ Champion Julien Canal and Jakub Giermaziak.

In total there are six Ligier JS P2 in the LMP2 category, four, including the Greaves Motorsport car plus Panis Barthez Competition, Algarve Pro Racing and Krohn Racing, powered by Nissan and two for SO24! By Lombard Racing and IDEC Sport Racing with Judd engines. 

The Panis Barthez Competition Ligier will feature former French Soccer star Fabien Barthez, who is making his Le Mans Prototype debut at Silverstone, Timothe Buret and former multiple ELMS Champion Paul Loup Chatin. 

The Algarve Pro Racing Ligier will also feature another sporting legend as the UK’s most decorated Olympian Sir Chris Hoy begins the season his ambition of competing at Le Mans comes to fruition.  The former cycling star won the inaugural ELMS LMP3 title in 2015 and has now stepped up to LMP2 alongside fellow Briton Michael Munemann and India’s Parth Ghorpade.

There are five ORECA chassis on the 2016 grid, three of which are ORECA 05-Nissans run by Dragonspeed, Eurasia Motorsport and 2015 Vice Champions Thiriet by TDS Racing, with Pierre Thiriet sharing the driving duties in 2016 with FIA WEC LMP1 Privateer Champion Mathias Beche and Japan’s Ryo Hirakama.  The two open cockpit ORECA 03Rs are run by Race Performance, who are running a Judd engine, and Murphy Prototypes with a Nissan powered car.

The Russian built BR01 returns to the ELMS in 2016 with the SMP Racing team running two Nissan powered cars.  The grid is completed by the Gibson 015S-Nissan for G-Drive Racing, with race winners Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell being joined by former Caterham F1 driver Giedo Van Der Garde, and the Morgan-Nissan run by Pegasus Racing which will feature one of the two female drivers  on the grid, French driver Inès Taittinger.

The LMP3 field will feature a massive 20 car entry, with all but one of the entries running the Ligier JS P3 –Nissan.  The exception is the MurphyP3-3Dimensional.com Ginetta-Nissan that the Irish team is running for American Tony Ave and Venezula’s Doug Peterson. 

American team United Autosports finished the official test in Le Castellet at the top of the timing sheets and the two Ligiers will be hoping for big things at Silverstone as four of the six drivers, Alex Brundle,Christian England, Wayne Boyd and Matt Bell, are British.

Two teams on the MP3 entry are British, with 360 Racing and RLR MSPORT fielding a Ligier-Nissan each.

Oak Racing are also entering two Ligiers, with the no24 car featuring Team Owner and Onroak President Jacques Nicolet and son Pierre.  Oak Racing are just two of nine cars racing under the French Tricolor with Graff and Duqueine Engineering running a pair of Ligiers each and single car entries for M Racing-YMR, Ulimate and Panis Barthez Competition.

Poland is represented as a team entry on the ELMS grid for the first time with Inter Europol Competition for Pole Jakub Smiechowski and Frenchman Thomas Dagoneau.

The Villorba Corse team returns in 2016, swapping the Ginetta the Italians ran last season for a Ligier in 2016.  Like Eurointernational they have also elected to field an all Italian three driver line up.

The final entry is the Spanish team By Speed Factory who also return in 2016 after competing in the LMP3 category last season. Spaniards Jesus Fuster and Alvaro Fontes will be joined by British driver Tom Jackson.

The LMGTE category features nine entries and it is certainly a quality grid for the 2016 season, with five Ferrari 458s, two Porsche 911 RSR 991 and two Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

Denmark’s reigning ELMS LMGTE champions Formula Racing return with an all Danish driver lineup.  2015 champions Johnny Laursen and Mikkel Mac will be joined by Christina Nielsen in the Ferrari 458 Italia.  Nielsen is no stranger to endurance racing having competed in the United States and made appearances in the ELMS and started the 2016 season with a class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring earlier in March.

AF Corse will run two F458s with the Italian team featuring two driver line ups largely unchanged from the 2015 season. Rui Aguas, Marco Cioci and Pierguiseppe Perazzini will run in the no51 car, while British drivers Aaron Scott and Duncan Cameron with join Irishman Matt Griffin in the no55 Ferrari at Silverstone.

Austrian team AT Racing also return with an unchanged lineup after tasting victory in 2015.  Father and son duo Alexander Talkanitsa junior and senior will be with Alessandro Pier Guidi once again in the no56 Ferrari.

The final Ferrari on the LMGTE grid will by the British JMW Motorsport entry, with Britain’s Rory Butcher and Rob Smith being joined by former FIA GT1 World Champion Andrea Bertolini.

After competing in the final race in Estoril last year, 2015 British GT Champions Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam will compete for a full season in ELMS alongside Alex MacDowall in the Aston Martin Vantage.  Roald Goethe, Stuart Hall and Richie Stanaway make a welcome return to the ELMS in the no96 Aston Martin.

Porsche will be represented by a two car entry by Proton Competition with reigning LMGTE World Endurance Champion Richard Lietz joining team principal Christian Ried and Gianluca Roda in the no88 car.

The 4 Hours of Silverstone is the open round of the six race 2016 European Le Mans Series.  On Friday 15 April there will be two 90-minute Free Practice sessions, followed by Qualifying the following morning and the 4 Hours of Silverstone at 14h30 on Saturday 16 April.

For more information on the 4 Hours of Silverstone visit www.europeanlemansseries.com

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