United Autosports out in force
United Autosports five-car effort here is the first outing for the team with a very different structure.
The LMP2 Ligier crew is under the direct management of Trevor Foster. The ex Jordan Grand Prix and Zytek Engineering boss is in his second spell with the Garforth-based outfit, having acted as a consultant in the early days of its GT racing adventures.
Max Gregory takes on the responsibility for the title defence of the team’s ELMS LMP3 effort at team manager.
The two-car effort in the Michelin Le Mans Cup meanwhile is under the direction of Chris Warne, latterly McLaren GT test team manager but previously Team Principal of Le Mans Series title winning GT team Virgo Motorsport.
Richard Dean meanwhile is in watching mode, checking that the rapid expansion of the outfit is gelling well.
United are also the UK agents for Ligier’s LMP3 JS P3, and have additional customers still set to be announced. The Ligier UK company has now sold over a dozen JS P3s into the UK, plus the cars they are themselves operating on behalf of customers. In total, we believe 19 cars inside 12 months against a business plan that predicted around half a dozen sales in year 1.
Oregon Team Norma repaired
Following yesterday’s off at Parabolica in the morning session which left Oregon Team’s new Norma M30 damaged on its left front, the team has repaired the car for today’s action.
The car is now sporting a new front-left corner in bare carbon, adding black to its already varied livery.
Cameron’s Ferrari almost ready
The #55 Ferrari 488 GTE being tested here for the Duncan Cameron/Matt Griifin/Aaron Scott trio is not the car that will be raced by the Spirit of Race squad in the ELMS. Cameron’s Green Ferrari is in the final stages of its winter rebuild and is set to be shaken down this week before being delivered to Silverstone.
More and Better
Ben Hanley, fresh out of the #21 10Star DragonSpeed Oreca reported that the new Oreca 07 feels “just a bit better in every area” than the previous 05. “It has more power, speed, aero, everything really.” The #21 went fastest this morning on the new for 2017 Dunlop rubber, 9th fastest this afternoon on the older compound.
Nicolas Lapierre was on hand for the latter parts of the second session after being present in Paris in the morning for the formal announcement of the 2017 Signatech Alpine FIA WEC programme.
It was quite a day for Lapierre, confirmed as a returnee to Toyota, confirming a WEC seat fro Signatech Alpine for the other seven races of the season and setting second fastest time in the night session for the #21 crew.
Night running
The third track session today at Monza ran into full darkness, the two hour session starting at 19:00 local time, the first time in living memory that a public test for sportscars has been held into darkness.
Glitches
There were numerous glitches with the timing systems yesterday, an error with the speed trap later corrected but the driver indication system was problematic throughout with several teams awaiting new Magnetti Marelli systems
For the avoidance of doubt the drivers named in the DSC reports throughout yesterday are believed to be correct after results were checked with the teams rather than trusting the information listed on live timing.
