70 up for the ELMS
The 4 hours of Le Castellet marks the 70th European Le Mans Series event and the 14th ELMS race held at the circuit.
Circuit Paul Ricard is the only venue that has been an ever present on the ELMS calendar since LMEM took over responsibility for the Series in 2013 (above) and, due to the Covid 19 pandemic when the race in Spain was cancelled due to restrictions, Le Castellet became the first circuit to host two events in the same season*.
The 4 Hours of Le Castellet was held on Sunday, 19 July 2020, with the Le Castellet 240, a night race, being held a month later on Saturday, 29 August.
* Portimao held two races in the same season in 2023, but both came on the same event after the Imola event was cancelled due to incomplete building works.
Silver machine
The full ELMS livery is now adorning the #82 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R, and it looks splendid.
After the original car bound for the ELMS was destroyed in testing at Spa, TF Sport were forced to use one of their WEC Corvettes as an emergency replacement for the opening European round at Barcelona last month.
That car has now been confirmed as the full season ELMS chassis with a brand new car obtained to replace it in WEC as the #81.
ORECA 07 #100 on display
Paul Ricard is home to a number of notable motorsport operations, in particular to ORECA where their new and hugely expanded facility assembles the Ferrari 296 GT3, and builds the spines for the Acura and Alpine LMDH Hypercar as well as the forthcoming Genesis GMR001.
It’s also been the home since 2017 for the dominant LMP2 car of the current era the ORECA 07, almost 140 chassis have been built to date across Oreca, Aurus, and Alpine badged cars with the Acura DPi also built around Oreca 07 chassis – nine were used for that purpose.
It was a delight to see chassis #100 on display in the circuit foyer, in commemorative livery. The car has race just once, at Le Mans in 2022 for Cool Racing with Yifei Ye, Ricky Taylor and Nicklas Krütten. Interestingly, the car is understood to actually be the 99th chassis completed, there is no #13!!
Chicanery!
The 2025 4 Hours of Le Castellet will run to a circuit configuration not used for the ELMS since 2017, the chicane on the Mistral in use for the first time since the first year of the current generation of LMP2 cars.
It’s a move that is understood to have been made to offset tyre wear issues that caused problems in LMP2 in 2024.
Sophia On Track
Sophia Floersch was an unexpected addition to the Algarve Pro Racing line-up on track at the Collective Test on Thursday. The Portuguese team is working to put together a programme to bring the German racer back to the paddock where she scored a pair of podium finishes in LMP2 in 2021 and 2022.
Michelin Le Mans Cup
Forty-two cars are set to contest round 2 of the 2025 Michelin Le Mans Cup in a two-hour encounter at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Saturday, 3rd May.
The car and driver line-ups are identical at present fro those that started the season in Spain earlier this month.
That means that the TS Corse Duqueine and the second Inter Europol Ligier, both listed for the full season but missing for the season opener, are not added for the second round.
That leaves 18 LMP3, 17 LMP3 Pro-Am and eight GT3 runners to make up the grid.
Also notably, Marta Garcia returns after her huge accident in the opening race, the Spanish single seater ace pitched into the wall by contact from the rear whilst leading the race. Garcia joins Vanina Ickx in the Iron Dames Porsche which is an entirely new car, no more than 10% of the Barcelona car’s components were recoverable.
The Le Castellet Round sees Free Practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday morning. qualifying and the races will be streamed on YouTube.
Ligier European Series
Round two of the 2025 Ligier European Series season on 2 and 3 May completes the current ACO ‘ladder’ in support of the European Le Mans Series.
The much improved 26-car full season entry remains stable for the second round with 15 Ligier JS P4 and 11 Ligier JS2Rs
The action at Circuit Paul Ricard begins on Friday, 2 May, with free practice at 9 am, followed by two qualifying sessions at 3:40 and 4 pm. The two one-hour Castellet Heat races will be run on Saturday, 3 May, at 9 am and 1:05 pm and will be streamed live on the series’ YouTube channel and Facebook page.
