PR1/Mathiasen chooses Ligier
Last week PC team PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport confirmed that it will race in IMSA next season with a Ligier JS P217 chassis in the new Prototype class.
The team is expected to receive its chassis in December and complete a testing programme as early as November with a loaned car from Onroak with the WEC bodywork and Gibson engine the team will use.
To this point PR1 is only the second confirmed privateer IMSA Prototype customer after CDC/ Miller announced that they would be campaigning an Oreca 07 Gibson though Starworks’ Peter Baron has stated publicly that he intends to take delivery of a Riley Multimatic Gibson.
Ed Brown Unhappy
Following ESM’s second place finish at Petit Le Mans, following on of course from back to back wins at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona (below) and the 12 Hours of Sebring (below that), its final race using a Honda engine before switching to Nissan in 2017, team co-owner Ed Brown vented somewhat in a clearly unedited statement in the team’s Post-PLM press release. It appears that his relationship with HPD, which has lasted many years, has turned sour.
“I’m proud of the team,” he said. “They really dug hard. We didn’t have the car, but the team did really well. The drivers did unbelievable. I’m really disappointed in a partner that I’ve been working with for ten years, and that’s HPD.
“I felt like for the sister [Shank] car to be able to run two degrees more wing and have four miles an hour on us, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. I think it was payback for us moving to Nissan for next year,” Brown stated in the team’s release after the race.
“In fairness, we’ve been a good partner. We milked their 04b, which was a horrible car. We did a lot of things for them over the years. For them to treat us that was disappointing. But we still got second, and we showed them that even with them playing the games, we are still pretty fast.”
The race data shows that the fastest lap from the winning #60 car was some seven tenths of a second faster than that of the #2 ESM machine, Olivier Pla delivering the time. ESM’s fastest man, Pipo Derani, saw his best ;ap time eclipsed, though only marginally, by Ozz Negri with ESM’s second fastest driver, Scott Sharp, half a second back on best lap time that team-mate Derani.
ESM have campaigned the HPD twin turbo V6 in their IMSA outings this year with Nissan V8 power deployed in the team’s 2 car effort in the 2016 FIA WEC. They will though switch both to a full season in OMSA, and Nissan GT3 turbo V6 power next season with an Onroak developed Ligier JS P217 Nissan DPi, the team’s fourth different chassis, and third different engine, in two years.
ESM were beaten to the North American Endurance Championship, sponsored of course by Tequila Patron, by the #5 Action Express Racing team. Honda though won the Manufacturer’s NAEC crown courtesy of the PLM win for the #60 Michael Shank Racing Ligier Honda.
Magnus Racing accepts penalty
Newly crowned NAEC GTD Champions Magnus Racing will not contest the post-race penalty which denied the #44 Audi team the class win at Road Atlanta.
John Potter completed the opening 52-minute stint and did not get back in the car, which as a primary driver is not allowed, as a primary driver has to partake in more driving time.
The team incorrectly thought that its third driver Marco Seefried, (also a silver-rated driver) would have qualified for the minimum time requirement instead.
Magnus did though clinch the GTD NAEC title.
Panoz reveals its latest road car
At the company’s 20th anniversary celebration last weekend Panoz revealed its latest road car, the Avezzano, which is based on the Esperante GT car.
The new-for-2017 Avezzano features a superformed aluminum body like the Panoz AIV Roadster and the Esperante. But underneath will be a new generation of the Panoz-engineered and designed high-strength aluminum-intensive chassis.
More details on the car’s specs are expected to be released very soon with Panoz indicating that a race programme for the new car is under active consideration.
