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Friday, 15 July 2016
European Le Mans Series - 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring: Friday news & action
The European Le Mans Championship lands in Austria this weekend for the third race of the season, the 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring. This is the fourth successive year the ELMS visits the track in the Styrian Alps which has a unique setting with some jaw dropping scenery and lots of (big) elevation changes.
Track action for the European Le Mans Series started this morning with a 30 minute "Bronze driver collective test" for all ELMS entrants. Although not officially confirmed, this test may be the result after several complaints about lesser driving skills of bronze drivers at Imola in May.
The first practice session this afternoon saw 3 red flags over the course of 90 minutes. The first red flag came out early in the session when Longin in the #8 Race Performance LMP3 made contact with the #9 Graff Ligier, Longin ending up in the gravel trap. Half an hour into the session the second interruption was caused by debris on the track, the third one - after about an hour - was caused by another LMP3 car, this time the #5 who had an off and made a visit to the gravel trap.
Harry Tincknell, who just saw his contract with Ford extended, was fastest overall in the "good old" #38 Gibson 03/Nissan, putting a 1.21.809 on the timetable. Paul-Loup Chatin was second fastest, just over half a second (0.584) behind Tincknell in the #23 Panis Barthez Competition Ligier JSP2. Third fastest and quickest Oreca05 was Nicolas Lapierre in the #21 Dragonspeed, just 0.088 seconds behind Chatin. 
The session didn't end well though for the #38 G-Drive Gibson when Simon Dolan had an off late in the session, damaging the whole left side of the car.
LMP3 was a close battle at the front of the field with several drivers putting in the fastest time over the duration of the session. Everyone seemed to save the best for last, and after a real shootout at the end of the session, it was Simon Gachet in the #16 Panis Barthez Ligier JSP3 who was outright fastest with a 1.26.644. Gachet outpaced Wayne Boyd in the #3 United Autosports with 0.241 seconds and Alex Brundle in the second United Autosports #2 Ligier. The first 3 cars were the only ones lapping under 1.27'.
In GTE it was a battle of Porsche vs Ferrari, both Proton Porsches battling it out with the JMW Ferrari. At the start of the session, the #56 AT Racing Ferrari topped the timesheets, but dropped down to fifth at the end. The first six cars in GTE did come in within a second. After 90 minutes, Matteo Cairoli was fastest in 1.28.824 in the #88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR, holding off the charging Andrea Bertolini in the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari. Third fastest was the second Proton Porsche driven by Marco Seyfried. Best of the rest was Darren Turner in the #99 Beachdean Aston Martin.
The results of the first free practice can he found here.
Second free practice is scheduled for tomorrow morning, qualifying will be run early in the afternoon.
Nathanael Berthon will complete the season at the wheel of the Greaves Motorsport Ligier JSP2/Nissan in the European Le Mans Series. Berthon replaces Kuba Giermaziak and will join Meme Rojas Jr and Julien Canal for the remainder of the season.
Karun Chandhok returns to the Murphy Prototypes team for the race in Austria. He will join Guglielmo Belotti and Seán Doyle in the Oreca 03/Nissan. The car is still in Gas Monkey colors as they raced in Le Mans last month. Chandhok returns to Murphy after Le Mans 2014. So far he will only race in Austria but more races in the remainder of the season is still possible. As reported before, the Murphy team will only race in LMP2 this weekend. The Ave/Riley LMP3 has been delivered to the team (and present at the Red Bull Ring) & is now in it's final testing ahead of the homologation process.
French team SO24! by Lombard Racing has filed for bankruptcy earlier this month and thus withdrawn from the European Le Mans Series. Ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours, reports about financial problems were already going round. Erik Maris taking Olivier Lombards place at Le Mans only confirmed the rumours. Yesterday Vincent Capillaire confirmed the news on his facebook page. The team had a promising start of the season in Silverstone with a podium finish and got at the finish in 11th place in Imola. At Le Mans they finished 14th in the LMP2 class.
The second free practice session is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 08.45h local time, qualifying will be held in the afternoon from 12.50h.
The race starts on Sunday at 14.00h local time and will be broadcasted live on the championships website : www.europeanlemansseries.com and MotorsTV. A full list of tv stations broadcasting the race can be found here.
Kristof Vermeulen.
Sunday, 10 July 2016
ELMS action resumes at the Red Bull Ring next week
Next week, the European Le Mans Series heads off to Austria for the third round of the season at the Red Bull Ring. Earlier this week, the entry list for the 4 hour race has been published.
A total of 38 cars in 3 classes will be on the grid next Sunday. 11 cars will race in LMP2, which is 3 less compared to the starting grid at Imola. For the first time in ELMS history, all LMP2 cars will be powered by a Nissan engine, as all 3 Judd powered cars won't race in Austria.
Race Performance, who kept their clean sheet at Le Mans (6 starts, 6 finishes) won't bring their #34 Oreca 03/Judd to the Styrian Alps next week. The Swiss team will be at the Red Bull Ring with a one car effort in the LMP3 class. Mulsanne based SO24! by Lombard racing won't race their #22 Judd powered Ligier JSP2 in Austria either, after financial gremlins already came up ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours. The #28 IDEC Sport Ligier JSP2 decided to focus on their entry in the 24 hour race at Paul Ricard next week, but should be back on the ELMS grid for the remainder of the season.
All but 2 driver line-ups have already been confirmed. The third driver at Greaves Motorsport is still TBA, after Jakub Giermaziak has been replaced at Le Mans by Nathanaël Berthon due to a lack of sponsorship fundings. It's not clear yet if Berthon will race with Greaves again or Jon Lancaster who won the 2016 ELMS championship with the team (and tested at Le Mans) gets the third seat in Austria. Sean Doyle returns to the wheel of the #48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca 03/Nissan, he will be joined by Italian driver Guglielmo Belotti and a still to be announced third driver. In the #25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier, Andrea Pizzitola will take his place again after being replaced by Sir Chris Hoy at Le Mans.
The LMP3 field will be 19 cars strong, all Ligier JSP3/Nissan's this time. The Ave/Riley LMP3 which was bound to make its race debut in Austria is still struggling with the homologation process which has delayed its competition debut with another month. Murphy Prototypes raced with a Ginetta in Silverstone and a Ligier in Imola, but won't race in the LMP3 class in Spielberg. The Ave/Riley will be at the track though to do some more testing but won't race. Let's hope they will be able to make their debut at Paul Ricard next month.
At Graff Racing, James Winslow will join Paul Petit and Eric Trouillet in the #9 Ligier JSP3. He will replace the injured Enzo Guibert.
In LMGTE there are no significant changes compared to the last race in Imola. The 8 cars seen in Italy will be racing at the Red Bull Ring with similar driver line-ups, except for Proton Competition, for whom Marco Seefried and Matteo Cairoli will be joining car #77 and #78 respectively. They will replace Robert Renauer and Klaus Bachler.
Dragonspeed racing confirmed they will expand their ELMS effort in 2017 to two cars in the championship, and has ordered 2 new Oreca07/Gibson's. The team will also apply for an entry in the Le Mans 24 Hours. After their strong result at Imola with the first pole position and an excellent podium finish, the decision was made quickly to extend the team effort in the European Le Mans Series next season. Team principal Henrik Hedmand and Elton Julian were already at Le Mans last month to discuss the possibility of a 2017 entry at "the big one".
G-Drive's championship leader Harry Tincknell's contract with Ford Performance has been extended. The Englishman will now race for the remainder of the season in WEC in the #67 Ford GT. He already raced with the team at Silverstone, Spa and Le Mans and will now complete the season with Marino Franchitti and Andy Priaulx. Ticknell will also complete the ELMS season with G-Drive Racing alongside Simon Dolan and Giedo Van Der Garde in the Gibson/Nissan.
Last month, Norma has revealed the design of its first LMP3 chassis, the Norma M30 LMP3. Production of the car has been started, with the first chassis to be assembled by the end of the summer. In addition to studies conducted internally by Norma’s design desk since the summer of 2015, a significant collaboration was also implemented in recent months with the engineering office
at Tatuus, to validate an innovative process for design and development which entirely focused on optimising performance.
TDS Racing has already announced they will race a Norma M30 next season in the European Le Mans Series. According to Norbert Santos, who is thrilled with the partnership with TDS, several other teams have already showed interest in the new LMP3 and made clear they have the intention to race the new car as from next season."
Norbert Santos, the founder of the company declared "This is another very important moment in the history of Norma that we are in the middle of writing. We put a lot of resources and energy into the design of the M30. This will not only be a beautiful car but, we are convinced, it is also a performance car that will meet the expectations of our future partner teams. As such, I wish to very warmly thank Xavier Combet and Jacques Morello from TDS Racing for the speed with which they wished to formalise our agreements. I think they were both convinced of the relevance of our work. This is a first extremely important partnership that will allow us to prepare our launch in the best possible way. Other teams have already made clear their intention to join us. These are trusted brands that affect us, whilst the first car will only be, as scheduled, assembled at the end of the summer.
at Tatuus, to validate an innovative process for design and development which entirely focused on optimising performance.
TDS Racing has already announced they will race a Norma M30 next season in the European Le Mans Series. According to Norbert Santos, who is thrilled with the partnership with TDS, several other teams have already showed interest in the new LMP3 and made clear they have the intention to race the new car as from next season."
Norbert Santos, the founder of the company declared "This is another very important moment in the history of Norma that we are in the middle of writing. We put a lot of resources and energy into the design of the M30. This will not only be a beautiful car but, we are convinced, it is also a performance car that will meet the expectations of our future partner teams. As such, I wish to very warmly thank Xavier Combet and Jacques Morello from TDS Racing for the speed with which they wished to formalise our agreements. I think they were both convinced of the relevance of our work. This is a first extremely important partnership that will allow us to prepare our launch in the best possible way. Other teams have already made clear their intention to join us. These are trusted brands that affect us, whilst the first car will only be, as scheduled, assembled at the end of the summer.
Useful links for the race in Austria next week :
Kristof Vermeulen.
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