With just a fortnight having passed since the last race meeting, it is hard to have forgotten that all four class championships will be decided at this, the last race of the season.
LMP2 is the headline class and looks likely to be a duel to the chequered flag between Signatech Alpine’s #36 Alpine Nissan and defending champions Thiriet by TDS Racing’s #1 Oreca 03 Nissan. Both are tied in the team’s championship but as Mathias Beche didn’t race at Silverstone, it is only Pierre Thiriet that is in the hunt for the driver’s title, fending off Pierre Ragues and Nelson Panciatici. Oliver Turvey and Simon Dolan will be doing all they can to book-end the season with a win and if the battle between the joint championship leaders gets a little too hot, a win for their #38 Jota Sport Zytek Z11SN Nissan could still serve up the championships to them.
Some musical chairs have been played on the way over from Hungary. Nelson Panciatici is absent from Race Performance, regular driver Michel Frey joined by friend and associate Marcello Marateotto. Staying out of trouble and enjoying themselves in the sun of Sourthern France is likely to be their main objective after a bittersweet (or rather sweetbitter) Hungary round which saw their car eliminated in the opening laps having qualified a season-best second place.
John Hartshorne and Khaled Al Ml Mudhaf have vacated the Boutsen Ginion camp but are replaced by an intriguing line-up of 34 year old Belgian Renaud Kuppens (of Gillet Vertigo racing fame (he also raced for Marc VDS in the Ford GT in the FIA World GT Championship and is a current Maserati Trophy front-runner); and Radical racer James Swift.
LMPC is a two-horse race for the title between Team Endurance Challenge’s #48 and #49 cars and indeed these are the only two cars to turn up in the class. #48 only needs to finish (or for #49 not to) to take the title.
GTE remains an outside possibility for Proton’s Christian Ried but realistically Mowlem and Griffin should sew it up in the #52 Ram Racing Ferrari, a fourth placed finish should be good enough even if everything else goes against them. Ram have a place at Le Mans already because the top two spots in GTE will be invited, as opposed to the winner only in the other and #52 can’t finish any lower than second.
A very outside chance in GTC exists for Ollie Millroy and the Ecurie Ecosse team with their BMW Z4. They have drafted in Phil Quaife to bolster his chances, Andrew Smith completes the trio.
SMP Racing’s #69 has however been the GTC class stand-out since its entry in round two (a hat-trick, so they remain undefeated) but the Italians (Rizzolo, Gai and Case) in #62 will be sure to try and upset their form and if they do, they could well take the title for AF Corse. SMP bring back a third Ferrari F458 Italia GT3 as they did in their debut round at Imola, with none other than Mika Salo joining Boris Rotenberg and Anton Ladygin. Two genuine class debutants are DKR Engineering, with a BMW Z4 for Matthieu Lecuyer, Thomas Accary and Dimitri Enjalabert; and Scuderia Villorba Corse.
The weather is warm if rather cloudy and the forecast is for two dry days for this meeting, so it looks likely that the titles will be decided in the way we like the most: who is the fastest!
PS
