Well here we are, the (short) off-season is over and it’s time to go racing at Silverstone to kick off FIA WEC Season 8. 31 cars are entered for the opening round of the season across the four classes, and we begin our four-part preview by taking a look at LMP2.
This year, LMP2 features eight entries, with two chassis represented and a fresh-looking tyre war between Michelin and Goodyear, which has taken over from Dunlop. There are new drivers, new teams and new tyres, so plenty to look out for in this weekend’s four-hour encounter.
Of the eight cars entered in the class, seven of them are ORECA 07 Gibsons; the other is a Dallara P217. This means that Ligier has no representation this year after Larbre campaigned a JS P217 during the ‘Super Season’.
For Dallara, Cetilar Racing is its customer team this season, following Racing Team Nederland’s move to ORECA. The team will be looking to find form in its maiden WEC campaign, and behind the scenes, there have been some key changes made on an operational level. Villorba Corse will no longer run the car, instead, AF Corse will take on those duties.
Driving the team’s Michelin-shod Dallara will be Bronze-rated Roberto Lacorte, Andrea Belicchi and Giorgio Sernagiotto. It’s unreasonable to expect this effort to be fighting for wins, but challenging to make the podium via the new rules that see trophies handed out to the highest place Bronze driver is certainly a source of motivation, especially as three other cars feature a Bronze this season.
Throughout its time in the ELMS and WEC, the P217 has shown flashes of pace, but up against a field of ORECAs with strong line-ups, it remains to be seen what the ceiling is for Cetilar Racing.
Of the ORECAs in the field, three of them are due to race with Goodyear rubber.
Goodyear is pouring a lot of resources into this new programme, with the hope of building on Dunlop’s legacy of Le Mans wins and WEC titles in LMP2. Behind the scenes, there will be plenty of familiar faces working for Goodyear, but these are brand new tyres, and it remains to be seen whether it will bring all three specs for the upcoming season to Silverstone.
Michelin has the numbers, but Goodyear remains hopeful that it can convince teams to make the switch this season to swing the balance in its favour.
Two of the three Goodyear-shod entries are being run by Jota Sport. The first is the #38 Jota ORECA entry, the second is the single Jackie Chan DC racing 07 Gibson.
The #38, which will run in full-Goodyear colours, features Roberto Gonzalez and Anthony Davidson – from the DragonSpeed effort last season – alongside Antonio Felix da Costa, a late signee after Pastor Maldonado chose to step away.
This is a strong crew from top to bottom. Gonzalez has plenty of experience in an ORECA, Davidson needs little introduction thanks to his history of racing in factory LMP1 machinery, and da Costa will be raring to go after making appearances with BMW MTEK last season. The only question mark is whether or not da Costa will get up to speed early enough in the season to help the crew fight for wins; he has plenty of single-seater experience but has yet to race an LMP2.
JCDC’s single car will be driven by Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Will Stevens, another strong partnership.
Why has JCDC, which came achingly close to winning the LMP2 title last year, scaled back its effort to a single (Jota-run) car this year?
“Historically for the last two years, Jota has run the two cars on behalf of Jackie Chan DC Racing, the team underneath it, the mechanical service provided to the brand which is Jackie Chan DC Racing,” Jota’s Sam Hignett explained to DSC.
“This year, the budget wasn’t there to run two cars properly. So we consolidated it down to one car for Jackie Chan DC Racing, but it’s freed up our capacity. So we were able to run a second car as Jota Sport.”
Thus, the Jota name is back in high-level sportscar racing.
Goodyear’s third car is that of High Class Racing, which was a surprise entrant to the FIA WEC this year.
The Danish outfit, which has been racing in the European Le Mans Series since 2017, makes its first foray into the WEC’s globe-trotting championship with a line-up worth keeping an eye on.
Team regular Anders Fjordbach will race alongside long-time sportscar racer Mark Patterson and a new face to LMP racing, Kenta Yamashita.
Yamashita, a Super GT GT300 and GT500 race winner (who leads the Super GT standings currently), is certainly one to watch this year. He’s fast. How fast? The 24-year-old has been placed in the WEC this year by Toyota Gazoo Racing, which appears to be increasingly confident in his abilities. He will be eager to impress in a new environment.
Once Yamashita gets some experience under his belt, he, Fjordbach and Patterson should be aiming for top-five finishes regularly in this company.
Now for the Michelin runners. The most high-profile new name in the class this year is United Autosports, and for good reason; it has a pedigree of winning races in Europe and Asia in LMP2 and LMP3.
This year will be the first in the WEC for Richard Dean’s team, and the effort features one key difference relative to its previous LMP2 programmes; it’s with ORECA and not Ligier, and this was a customer-driven decision.
“Reflecting on the early races of 2019, it is clear that the ORECA 07 has had an advantage on certain circuits and, despite our loyalty to Ligier Automotive and the excellent relationship built over the years, we need to explore every opportunity available for our sponsors, partners and customers,” Dean said.
Thus, regular ELMS pairing Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque will pair up with Paul Di Resta, who won the Asian Le Mans LMP2 title this year with Hanson.
This is a line-up which has aspirations of winning the class title, and rightly so. All three have won races in LMP2 in the past two seasons and feel that the ORECA is the tool they need to consistently finish in podium positions.
United is a team that may look to switch compound throughout the year should the opportunity to test with the American brand arise.
“We considered Goodyear, but we ran out of time a little bit,” United co-owner Richard Dean told DSC.
“When the late change came to ORECA we had no chance to test both. The position we’d have liked to have been in over the winter was to have had a car and tried both because I don’t think there will be a lot in it.”
Racing Team Nederland on the other hand, did test both at the pre-season Prologue at Barcelona and made its decision based on that running.
Michelin, it is for the Dutch team, which has employed TDS Racing to help run its first WEC programme with ORECA.
The team’s line-up for Silverstone is strong should Frits van Eerd keep it clean and continue to improve. Giedo van der Garde returns and hopes to combine with Job van Uitert for a formidable one-two punch. Van Uitert, who currently leads the ELMS LMP2 title race with G-Drive Racing, is competing this weekend in place of Nyck de Vries, who has a clash and can’t make the trip.
It will be interesting to see what van Uitert can do in his maiden outing with the outfit. He will return to the team later in the year, as the Dutchman has already been confirmed as a stand-in for van Eerd at Shanghai.
The final ORECA 07 Gibson listed, but not the final car to discuss, is that of Cool Racing. The Swiss-flagged effort continues its rapid expansion in prototypes with this new programme, which sees Antonin Borga and Alexandre Coigny add the WEC to their current full-season ELMS LMP2 commitments. Alongside them will be Nicolas Lapierre, who moves on from Signatech Alpine after a superb ‘Super Season’, winning the title and continuing his 100% win-streak in LMP2 at Le Mans.
The time has come for him to take the plunge and switch to racing full-time with Cool Racing, a move that was made, per is own words to DSC, because he’s interested in being more involved in helping run a team away from the circuit.
Cool Racing’s expectations will be realistic in Year 1. The move from LMP3 to LMP2 in the ELMS and now WEC in such a short space of time will not be without its challenges.
Finally, we have Signatech Alpine and its A470. The French team will have the WEC title-defence firmly on its agenda for this season. Andre Negrao, Pierre Ragues alongside former Rebellion LMP1 man and newly-named Toyota Gazoo Racing reserve driver, Thomas Laurent.
Expect Signatech, with this driver trio, to be fighting for wins throughout the season. In 2018/19 consistency was the key, as the team finished on the podium in every single race and won Le Mans both times during the season. Can it repeat that level of success this time around? It would be remarkable, but it is certainly not an unachievable feat.
