Well, it’s mid-April, pre-season testing is over, which means it’s finally time to see what the European Le Mans Series has to offer in 2019.
A 41-car field will race at the six circuits on the calendar this year, across the three classes, which all look as packed with talent as ever.
In terms of the schedule, Paul Ricard this weekend opens the season again, straight after the two official Test Days, before the rest of the season takes place. There’s one new circuit on the calendar for 2019, Barcelona, which replaces the Red Bull Ring. The race in Spain will also see the ELMS teams race into the night, the ACO announcing yesterday that it will be a 22:30 finish on the Saturday night.
Before that though, there’s plenty of racing to come. Here’s a look at what to expect up and down the order before the first race of the season on Sunday.
Can G-Drive repeat as champion in the stellar LMP2 field?
Each year in the ELMS, the LMP2 class seems to grow in both numbers and quality. This year, 18 cars are entered, a record number, which makes it the largest full-season LMP2 field anywhere in the world. Three of the four chassis are represented this year, and both Dunlop and Michelin will continue to do battle in the tyre department.
First up is Dallara, which has just a single representative this season, this the brand new Thunderhead Carlin Racing effort. Jack Manchester’s tall frame was effectively the principal determinant of chassis choice, with Carlin’s long history with the Italian brand an additional draw. The entry into sportscars, from one of the most significant names in single-seater racing outside of Formula One.
Manchester will race with 2018 4H Paul Ricard winner Olivier Pla this weekend and from then on fellow Ford factory man Harry Tincknell, and McLaren factory driver Ben Barnicoat, making for what should be a driver-crew capable of extracting the most out of the P217 package.
A third of the 18 car entry meanwhile, comprises of Ligier JSP217 teams, with some significant changes in the outfits fielding the cars from last year.
United’s title-contending pair remains, as does IDEC Sport’s more Am-crewed effort. Panis Barthez, on the other hand, has doubled its effort to run with a second car and the 2018 LMP3 race-winning and Asian Le Mans class-winning Inter Europol Competition has stepped up to LMP2 with a single example plus a second spare car.
The pair of two-car teams all have strong driver line-ups, and also represent further interest with United and Inter Europol fielding Michelin tyres and Panis Barthez with Dunlops.
Moving on to the driver talent, United returns with Phil Hanson, joined at Paul Ricard by Paul Di Resta, whilst otherwise regular season partner Filipe Albuquerque is on IMSA duty at Long Beach. Hanson must be regarded as a potential 2019 champion, especially as he’s fresh from winning an impressive second Asian Le Mans Series title this past winter.
Looking to spoil his year though, will be the sister crew of another returning United champion, 2016 LMP3 champion Alex Brundle, joined by increasingly impressive Ryan Cullen.
Inter Europol fields yet another champion, 2017 overall ELMS winner Leo Roussel, who will race with 2018/19 LMP3 champion Kuba Schmiechowski, with ex-F1 test driver Dani Clos, on his return to racing completing the trio.
Another strong line-up is Panis Barthez’s #23 crew, which features Rene Binder, joining 2018 returnees Julien Canal and Will Stevens. The team’s third driver in 2018, Timothe Buret, switches to the new second car, to race alongside 2018 Le Mans Cup winner Leonard Hoogenboom, and ex-AVF driver Konstantin Tereschenko, who will be looking for a rather more incident-free season this time around.
That leaves the ORECA 07, which equips the majority of the field with 11 cars, albeit with one running under a different name, that of the defending champion G-Drive Racing, racing again with TDS. The Russian-flagged effort, among the favourites to win the title, will run with an ORECA re-badged as an Aurus 01, thanks to a deal with the Russian limousine manufacturer, which is dipping its toes in sportscar racing.
G-Drive’s line-up has a fresh look to it for the season, Roman Rusinov again partnered with Jean-Eric Vergne (who will miss the opener due to Formula E commitments) but with 2018 LMP3 Champion Job Van Uitert as the new face in the team.
The Dutchman has, DSC understands, been head-turning in testing over the offseason, and looks set to be one of the quickest drivers in the field in his first year racing in P2. The team’s performance this weekend, where former Racing Engineering man Norman Nato (who won at Ricard last year) will fill in for JEV, could be a fascinating watch.
DragonSpeed is another returning championship winning team, though its 2017 title came running under the G-Drive Racing banner. Henrik Hedman is back again, together with regular driving partner Ben Hanley who is now mixing his ELMS and WEC duties with the team’s new partial season IndyCar programme. The third driver here is a new addition, James Allen, who previously raced with GRAFF but more recently competed with the American outfit in the FIA WEC as part of its LMP1 crew.
Duquinene Engineering can’t be ignored either, and cannot be far either from a first win, the team winning on the road in Austria last year, before losing out to a fuel sample irregularity after the race. Its three-man crew, Nicolas Jamin, Pierre Ragues and ELMS and WEC race winner Richard Bradley.
Also showing form last year was IDEC Sport, often quick in Qualifying and in contention through the season, with an unchanged trio of Paul Loup Chatin, Memo Rojas and Paul Lafargue. The team will hope Lafargue will be fit after back surgery late last year.
GRAFF was a race winner late in the 2017 season but struggled last year for form. It reeled in its LMP2 effort to two cars for this year, for Tristan Gommendy, Alexandre Cougnaud and Jonathan Hirschi.
Algarve Pro Racing, the Portuguese based team, which rejoins the ELMS grid with a two-car ORECA effort this year, with a mixture of returning and new faces, including 2017 LMP3 champion John Falb, who will race with reigning LMP2 champion Andrea Pizzitola and evergreen Mark Patterson in one car. The team’s sister ORECA has a new-look squad, with team regular Tacksung Kim, IMSA regular James French and Henning Enqvist.
Denmark’s High Class Racing is one of three new faces to the ORECA customer stable, back for a third season of ELMS LMP2 competition. Anders Fjordbach, in particular, has been very quick in testing and broke the LMP2 lap record at Paul Ricard on Day 1 of this week’s pre-season test. He returns with Dennis Andersen, who is also looking for an uptick in form since switching from the Dallara chassis which the team often found tough to get the most out of.
The pre-season tests saw sharply different form from the three other new ORECA teams, that have stepped up from racing with Ligier in LMP3. Cool Racing has employed the mercurial Nicolas Lapierre alongside LMP3 graduate Atonin Borga and Alexandre Coigny, whilst the Italian-based but British flagged outfit BHK, struggled with ‘new car niggles’ and was only able to shakedown it’s new 07 and turn a handful of laps at the very end of the Ricard test.
Reigning LMP3 class champion RLR is also here with an ORECA, John Farano stepping up from the P3 effort, supported in his first season in P2 by former F2 driver Arjun Maini and superstar Brazillian Bruno Senna
LMP2 is also the only class with a tyre war in the ELMS, and it mustn’t be overlooked, as arguably, the battle between Dunlop and Michelin has never been more intense.
After great strides were made by Michelin midway through last season, the French brand picked up customers in the off season, eager to match the success shown late on in 2018 by United Autosports, which scored a double win in the last two races.
The boys and girls in the yellow and black though, have bided their time, unveiling their last permitted new tyre until the end of 2019 at March’s Sebring 1000 Miles. There, the new Dunlop was dominant, and whilst the differences in testing at Paul Ricard have been less profound, it does seem as if Dunlop’s waiting game, might pay dividends.
The key, as always, is not going to be the ultimate pace, but the consistency and longevity of the available options. Which brand will emerge with the better compound, is the as-yet-unanswered question at the heart of the 2019 European Le Mans Series.
With the late, very late, transfer of Panis Barthez Competition to Dunlop, the LMP2 class comes in at nine cars apiece across the two brands. Are we set to see dominance by one brand, a weather or temperature dependent swing in fortunes, or a season-long dogfight? Watch this space…
LMP3 as hard to predict as ever
Many teams are returning to the LMP3 class this year, but the entry features many new drivers all looking to make steps up the LMP ladder and fight for an auto-entry for Le Mans.
Once again Ligier has the advantage in terms of numbers, with nine of the 14 cars JS P3s. Norma though still has a presence and with some key teams that can contend for a title right away.
One of them is Nielsen Racing, the British team returning to the ELMS with an expanded two-car attack, with one Norma and one Ligier. In its Norma, Colin Noble returns to race alongside his LMP3 Cup title-winning partner Tony Wells, who raced with the team over the winter in Asian Le Mans.
Noble proved throughout 2018 that he has the pace to win races, and did so with Ecurie Ecosse/Nielsen Racing in Le Mans Cup last year. With Wells a familiar driving partner, and the M30 the quicker of the two P3 chassis in the right hands, this could be a big year.
The other Nielsen car sees former Asian Le Mans Series racer Nobuya Yamanaka drive with Briton James Littlejohn, the pair racing the Ligier JS P3 which Yamanaka campaigned this past Asian Le Mans season with Eurasia.
Elsewhere, Realteam Racing, run by GRAFF, is a new name to the series with a Norma M30 and Bronze driver Esteban Garcia and David Droux, who competed with GRAFF last season, driving.
The other three line-ups in camp Norma are strong. The Oregon Team example to be piloted by gentleman driver Lorenzo Bontempelli, GT Open race winner Damiano Fioravanti and Gustas Grinbergas who joins the ELMS field straight from Karting, but through testing was among the fastest in the field.
M Racing, after a 2018 campaign which saw the team quick in Qualifying, but struggle to finish well, is also back. Its Norma will be driven by Laurent Billara, Lucas Legeret and standout Yann Ehrlacher. The French outfit will be hoping to challenge for the title this time around.
As will Ultimate, which also looked set for wins last year but for a multitude of reasons could only manage a single podium. Its driver trio this year comprises of Mathieu Lahaye, Jean-Baptiste Lahaye and Francois Heriau, all back with the team for 2019.
Then there are the Ligier teams, headed by the United Autosports team, which is hungry to win another LMP3 title this year after an uncharacteristically inconsistent season last term.
Its two Ligiers in the series bring familiar names, all with plenty of experience. The #2 will be steered by Wayne Boyd, Garret Grist and prototype returnee Tommy Erdos, a previous class champion back in the Le Mans Series days, now a Bronze. The sister #3 meanwhile, will race with a two-man crew, Mike Guasch and Christian England, who won the 2016 title.
Reigning champion RLR Msport is also back racing in LMP3 in addition to its LMP2 effort, but with a very different driving crew. Christian Olsen moves over from Nielsen Racing and hopes to score his first class win this season, racing with Martin Rich, who has multiple Le Mans starts under his belt as well as a run in the Road To Le Mans in the past, and Dane Vedel Mortensen.
Two of the other Ligiers come from Inter Europol, which after winning its first ELMS race at the end of last year, and an Asian Le Mans title over the winter has to be considered a contender. The plucky Polish squad, which has come a long way in a short time, has team regular Martin Hippe paired with Nigel Moore (who was rapid in Asian Le Mans this past winter in a JS P3) in one car, and Paul Scheuschner and Dino Lundari in the other.
360 Racing also brings two cars to the class for the first time, and it too is looking to contend for a title after its #6 car came close to winning races on multiple occasions during the 2018 season. John Corbett, Andreas Laskaratos and James Winslow will drive the #5 and Terrence Woodward and Ross Kaiser return to drive the #6 with James Dayson.
The only other team to mention is Eurointernational, though at the time of writing its status this season hangs in the balance after its Ligiers were seized by authorities in the paddock at Paul Ricard ahead of the opening practice session.
It’s Ferrari vs Porsche in the bolstered GTE ranks
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises on the 2019 entry was the growth in GTE, which is now up to nine cars, five of them Ferraris, the other four Porsches. All of them are to current specification, and as usual, running on spec-Dunlop tyres.
The Ferrari contingent sees two returning teams and three cars from newcomers to the Series.
There’s no change for the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari squad. The same driving trio and the same car coming back for another crack at the title, Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Aaron Scott looking to find consistency in their results to match their undoubted speed after two seasons where DNFs have cost them dearly.
JMW meanwhile returns with the same car, but an entirely different driver line-up, Matteo Cressoni provides the obligatory Italian pace, with a familiar face in unfamiliar setting, Jeff Segal rejoins the JMW team (he drove for them at Le Mans last year) bringing his current driving partner Canadian Wei Lu to the effort, as the pair embark on the journey towards Le Mans again.
The two new names to ELMS include one very well established GT entity, and one relatively new inductee.
Swiss outfit Kessel Racing steps up into GTE with a vengeance, a two-car effort following on from its successful Michelin Le Mans Cup campaign last season.
Its #60 Ferrari 488 GTE sees a trio of Michelin Le Mans Cup ‘graduates’, Claudio Schiavoni, 2018 le Mans Cup Champion Sergio Pianezzola and ELMS veteran Andrea Piccini.
The sister #83 car sees the all-female crew of Rahel Frey, Manuela Gostner and Michelle Gatting, both Kessel crews will be at Le Mans, and, as you’ll read later on DSC, the journey of the #83 car there has been unwittingly misreported elsewhere!
Luzich Racing meanwhile is one of the latest entities to find support from the AF Corse mega-team.
The US-owned (by Michael Luzich) but Swiss-flagged outfit steps over to ACO rules racing this season from the International GT Open. Reigning FIA WEC GT Drivers World Champion Alessandro Pier Guidi provides the proven pace, Ferrari Challenge World Champ Nicklas Nielsen, last seen in action with impressive pace in the FIA GT Nations Cup in Bahrain is likely to provide fulsome support, and Ferrari one-make Fabien Lavergne completes the trio.
Porsche on the other hand, has four cars on the grid, across three teams, all well known to DSC readers.
Ebimotors is back for a second season in the ELMS with its 911 RSR, Fabio Babini is back aboard the #80 car to be joined by experienced GT race Marco Frezza, who steps up into ELMS for the first time. Sebastien Fortuna is the team’s new Bronze ranked driver for 2019.
Project 1 is new to the ELMS, but now a regular in the WEC, currently leading the Am class standings. The German team adds an ELMS programme to its WEC effort, the car ready to go, with a splendid new livery. The 911 it’ll use this season is the car that replaced its regular WEC RSR after a fire in testing; that car will be replaced by a new Porsche for the WEC round at Spa.
Egidio Perfetti and Jörg Bergmeister step over from the WEC effort to be joined by 2018 ELMS GTE Champion Giorgio Roda who moves over from Proton Competition.
Speaking of which, Christian Ried’s outfit again fields a pair of Porsches, both with ‘new’ looks for 2019. One is entered, due to a peculiarity of the terms under which an auto entry for Le Mans is verified, as Dempsey Proton Racing.
Indeed the #77 car has two of the three Le Mans GTE Am winners aboard, Ried and Matteo Cairoli, joined for the season by Ebimotors 2018 standout Ricardo Pera.
The sister #88 Porsche is in splendidly throwback ‘Felbermayr’ livery, the car owned by Horst Felbermayr Sr and driven here as a planned one-off by his son together with Marco Seefried and Porsche Junior Thomas Preining.
