G-Drive Racing enters FIA WEC with Oreca 07 and TDS Racing

Russian team G-Drive Racing will continue its efforts in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. G-Drive will race a new Gibson powered Oreca07, with a new technical partner and a new driver line-up. 

After a succesful collaboration with Jota Sport in the FIA WEC and ELMS last season, G-Drive now teams up with French team TDS Racing.  In 2017, G-Drive Racing, with the support of Gazprom oil, will take part in all nine stages of theFIA WEC, including the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.  In the upcoming season, G-Drive Racing will race the all new Oreca 07 prototype with the Gibson V8 engine.

Behind the wheel of the car under the number 26, Roman Rusinov will be joined by Frenchman Pierre Thiriet, who steps up to the FIA WEC after a few very succesfull seasons in the European Le Mans Series with several wins and the overall title in 2012.  The name of the third driver will be announced later. The team is currently in negotiation with several drives with experience in Formula 1. 

2017 will be a jubilee season for G-Drive Racing, their fifth in the FIA World Endurance Championship. In the past 4 years, they won 15 races, a record in the LMP2 class. They took the LMP2 championship on 2015 and scored a winning streak of 3 races at the end of last season. 

Quotes: 

Roman Rusinov, G-Drive Racing driver: "We are ready for a great new season in the FIA WEC. Putting everything together for this season wasn't easy though, as the change of technical regulations required us to search for a new car and technical team. We have been working on this for the past six months, and have opted for the new Oreca model. We believe that this car will be the fastest on the grid and are looking forward to the start of the seaso. Our goal: only victory. "

Alexander Krylov, Gazprom oil Director of Regional Sales, Project Manager-Drive Racing: "The new technical regulations are intriguing. The new engines are more powerful, and the speed of LMP2's are getting closer to the LMP1's. And most importantly, the company can test the G-Drive fuel on the most advanced technology. We have already started testing in the off-season tests and will continue to do so during the races. We are constantly improving the motor characteristics of G-Drive fuel, and consumers know that this is the most powerful fuel both on the racetrack and on the streets of Russian cities. "

Kristof Vermeulen.

FIA WEC: ByKolles moving to Nismo engines in 2017

ByKolles racing announced its new deal with Nissan/Nismo to supply a new power unit for their CLM P1/01 LMP1 prototype. The German team also confirmed that as from 2018 the car will be available to customers. ByKolles will then be the second manufacturer able to supply a chassis, next to Ginetta. 

ByKOLLES Racing is looking forward to the cooperation with a new engine supplier for the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship season. The private LMP1-Team based in Greding, Germany, will cooperate with Nismo as engine supplier with immediate effect. The integration of the V6-Turbo Engine, as well as many other improvements to the chassis, bodywork and mechanical parts of the CLM P1/01 are all progressing according to plan.

„Engine supply from Nismo is of great significance to our team“, says ByKOLLES Head of Operations Boris Bermes. „After having to deal with many setbacks in the past due to engine reliability issues, for the 2017 season, we’re expecting a significant improvement in terms of both reliability as well as performance.“

“In our extensively revised CLM P1/01, Nismo Twin-turbo engine will deliver it’s power to the rear axle through the reliable Xtrac gearbox“, explains Boris Bermes. „We’re relentlessly working on numerous additional improvements to our car. As a result of the changes in regulations for 2017, we will be able to make big improvements to both the front and the rear, particularly in aerodynamics. In addition to that, our design engineers have achieved a reduction in weight, and have introduced comprehensive updates to mechanical components. We’re already looking forward to the first tests with our fully revamped CLM P1/01. 

For this year, we are looking to clearly demonstrate our improvements and continue to develop our CLM P1/01. For the 2018 season, the car will be made available to customers to adapt customer power source and can be ordered as of now.“

Kristof Vermeulen. 

Keating Motorsports confirmed as 14th invited team at Le Mans

This afternoon, the ACO confirmed the list of 14 auto-entries for this years Le Mans 24 Hours on June 17-18th. 

14 teams have already won an invitation to participate in qualifying for the 2017 Sarthe Classic. These have been awarded taking into account the results of the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours, European Le Mans Series, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Asian Le Mans Series, the last round of which took place this Sunday, and the Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup.

As reported last week, 13 entries were already known following the end of the Asian Le Mans Series. The remaining entry still had to be proposed by IMSA and has been appointed to Ben Keating Racing with the Riley-Multimatic LMP2. It's still to be seen of Keating will run the car on his own team, or in collaboration with Visit Florida Racing which is racing the same car in IMSA. Visit Florida Racing also planned to apply for an entry at Le Mans this year. Keating will be one of the three drivers, the other two still to be announced. Jeroen Bleekemolen is expected in the Riley (they share a Mercedes GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship). If Visit Florida Racing supports Keating at Le Mans, Marc Goossens could well be the third driver, reuniting the team that drove the Murphy Prototypes Oreca03 last year. 

This is the final roundup of the 14 cars invited: 

LMP1

Porsche Team

LMP2

Signatech Alpine 

G Drive Racing 

United Autosports

Keating Motorsports

Algarve Pro Racing

Tockwith Motorsports

GTE 

Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA (Pro)

Scuderia Corsa (Am)

Aston Martin Racing (Pro or Am) 

JMW Motorsport (Pro or Am)

DH Racing (Pro or Am)

TF Sport (Am)

Each invitation will be confirmed only if the car in question is entered in one of the following three championships in 2017: Asian Le Mans Series, European Le Mans Series and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. 

The entries for the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours, FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) and European Le Mans Series have been open since Friday 16th December. The closing date is today Tuesday 24th January.  The complete lists will be announced live from Le Mans on Thursday 2nd February at 16:00 in exclusivity on the internet in a totally new innovative format. As of now the media and surfers can pose questions via the social networks using the hashtag #Endurance2017. 

Kristof Vermeulen.