LMP1 (9 Cars)
1 LMP1-H Audi Sport Team Joest Lucas Di Grassi/ Loïc Duval/ Tom Kristensen Audi R18 e-tron quattro
2 LMP1-H Audi Sport Team Joest Marcel Fässler/ André Lotterer/ Benoit Tréluyer Audi R18 e-tron quattro
3 LMP1-H Audi Sport Team Joest Felipe Albuquerque/ Marco Bonanomi
7 LMP1-H Toyota Racing Alexander Wurz/ Stéphane Sarrazin/ Kazuki Nakajima Toyota TS 040 Hybrid
8 LMP1-H Toyota Racing Anthony Davidson/ Nicolas Lapierre/ Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS 040 Hybrid
14 LMP1-H Porsche AG Romain Dumas/ Neel Jani/ Marc Lieb Porsche 919 Hybrid
20 LMP1-H Porsche AG Timo Bernhard/ Mark Webber/ Brendon Hartley Porsche 919 Hybrid
12 LMP1-L Rebellion Racing Nicolas Prost/ Nick Heidfeld/ Mathias Beche Rebellion R One Toyota
13 LMP1-L Rebellion Racing Dominik Kraihamer/ Andrea Belicchi/ Fabio Leimer Rebellion R One Toyota
Nine cars on the LMP1 entry and there is plenty to talk about here.
The Lotus T129 is still a no show though – Le Mans or bust seems to be the mantra there.
The absent Lotus’s LMP1-L sub class rivals though are here, and are set to give the public debut to their new pair of still Toyota engined Rebellion R-Ones.
After giving the old Lolas a more fitting send off at Silverstone it’s time to look forward not back at Rebellion but whilst this is a time to savour some good news, it’s unlikely to be easy for the team to debut two very, very new cars fault free over six hours.
The R One looks a handsome beast in the early photos, but it will look even better if it proves to be fast!
Hopefully we’ll get to see what a step forward the new car is, and get at least a flavour of whether this is a plan that can work for the little team that could. If the cars can be reliable then it is surely the #12 crew that is the team most likely, Nick Heidfeld was (again!) mighty in the rain at Silverstone.
Silverstone was though a disaster for Audi, neither car finished and the turnaround for Spa saw them having to rebuild two cars after tub damage for both in the incidents that befell Lucas di Grassi and Benoit Treluyer.
There’s a third car too, this a repeat of Audi’s 2013 effort with their full ‘langheck’ Le Mans trim back to back race tested against the regular full season pair. Oliver Jarvis won’t drive either at Spa or the Le Mans Test Day, the Audi team releasing the Englishman to fulfil a full season Super GT obligation, but it will see the WEC debut of Felipe Albuquerque alongside the returning Marco Bonanomi, Audi’s regular LMP test driver.
The long tail car was captured on video in testing at Monza recently (together with a ‘mystery’ R8 LMS derivative) by YouTuber digitalmoviedv2.
The Audis proved very quick over a single lap at Silverstone, and ran with the Toyotas at Silverstone in the early stages but we don’t know enough yet to assess whether the endurance sums have been calculated correctly or not in the 2mK vs 6mJ battle.
Porsche will have emerged from Silverstone pretty satisfied with the first effort from the 919 Hybrid – One car home and on the podium was probably more than they expected, the issues for the #14 car though will have proved a real concern, a wheel loss and subsequent hydraulic woes putting the #14 car out of the race.
Porsche ran with the disadvantage of their full Le Mans low downforce kit at Silverstone, that should be less of a problem at Spa, and should provide valuable data for the 24 Hours ahead. The 919 looked to be another car capable of a quick single lap pace but lagged badly in the early stages of the race as the fierce pace of the Audi /Toyota battle, the prevailing conditions and the aero disadvantage told.
The #20 car though ran well, at pace and reliably to survive the fray and bring Porsche valuable race mileage, valuable points and invaluable publicity too.
Their mission at Spa will be to get both cars home, and to get them there as competitively as possible.
Toyota arrive at Spa with the unique (for them) position of a major Championship advantage – 1,2 at Silverstone was their dream result – A meltdown for Audi adds to that advantage.
The TS040s looked fast and raceable from the off and the team are confident enough to bring both of their cars to Spa in full Le Mans trim, and as we saw at Paul Ricard, where the cars were run back to back in both available aero formats, the car is ready to run, and run fast.
Toyota have their tails up with good reason but as we saw at Silverstone the racing at the front will be fast and furious – Speed, reliability and a little dash of racing luck will be required at one of the most iconic and challenging tracks in the world – We can’t wait for this one!
GG
