Longstanding Audi Sport customer Team Saintéloc is aiming to compete with the R8 LMS platform at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2024, via an auto-invite earned by winning the GT3 championship in the 2023/24 Asian Le Mans Series season.
For the Saint-Étienne-based team, its forthcoming Asian Le Mans Series campaign will be its first in the continental ACO championship in Asia. The team will run a pair of R8 LMS GT3 EVO IIs, according to team director Frédéric Thalamy, with the sole intention of winning the title and earning the right to compete at the La Sarthe.
“The plan is to run with the strongest line-ups we can, as we want to try for Le Mans,” he told DSC. “We really want to do this. The only challenge for us is how tight it is (for freight) between the opening race at Sepang in the first week of December and the last race in Fanatec (GT World Challenge) at Zandvoort in October. But it’s three events with five races, we will find a way, it won’t be a problem for us.”
Team Saintéloc has delivered standout results for Audi Sport in the past, including a Spa 24 Hours overall victory in 2017. The relationship between it and the German manufacturer remains strong, despite the news emerging earlier this year that Audi Sport is set to scale back its customer racing programme from 2024 onwards.
Thalamy explained to DSC that he continues to believe that the R8 LMS remains capable of competing for overall wins and titles going forward, in addition to being a commercially appealing platform as the cost of new GT3 cars continues to escalate.
“The plan is to stay with Audi in 2024, this is clear,” he said.
“We know the car well, and it isn’t too expensive to run compared to the new cars. We also believe in Audi’s customer support, as it will be the same in 2024, except for the line-up of factory drivers.”
However, Thalamy explained that Team Saintéloc believes it has a very narrow window to compete at Le Mans 24 Hours with customer support from Audi, hence its swift move to put together a campaign in the Asian Le Mans Series for the 2023/24 season.
“There are difficulties with the torque sensors needed for the car and the LMGT3 aero map, but along with Audi, we are working on it and testing,” Thalamy said. “We have only one chance with Audi to do this (run in Asian Le Mans and the Le Mans 24 Hours with the R8). After next year it’s finished. We are pushing very hard for this, and Audi is open to us doing it.
“I think as Audi didn’t find a solution to run in Hypercar, there are limited spaces for its cars in LMGT3,” he continued.
“If we have a chance, it will be next season as even though there will be a lot of requests from other manufacturers for cars in Le Mans and the FIA WEC, Audi has a case that it was loyal in difficult moments with LMP1.”
Beyond the conclusion of the 2023/24 Asian Le Mans Series season, Team Saintéloc has not yet decided where it will race going forward. Currently, it competes in GT World Challenge Europe, the GT4 European Series and 24H Series, all with Audi.
Thalamy says there are still many decisions to be made about the team’s future in GT3 racing. At this stage, it is still busy evaluating where it will compete.
“Where we will race is the question of the day,” Thalamy said when asked about Saintéloc’s 2024 plans beyond the second half of the Asian Le Mans Series.
“We have ELMS, Le Mans Cup, Fanatec (GT World Challenge) and Creventic as options. We have a lot of requests from different customers for next year. We are in discussions currently to work out which championships are the most interesting.
“Today with SRO it’s working well, but customers are looking around and at different opportunities. We have to follow them.”
Featured image courtesy of Audi
