Tim Greaves took time out from a busy day at Paul Ricard’s ELMS Prologue test this afternoon to explain the withdrawal of one of the team’s planned pair of LMP2 cars from the full season ELMS, and from the first reserve slot for the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The #1 Gibson Nissan had been planned to return to the ELMS after taking the Championship win last season with Alex Brundle slated to lead the effort at Le Mans had the car been elevated to the entry list proper.
Greaves explained that with the car listed as a reserve it had been difficult to ensure a full driver line-up for the ELMS and that there had been issues too with acquiring a Nissan engine within the available time.
That point was acknowledged by Gibson Engineering who prepare the Nissan V8s for Gibson chassis customers, (amongst others) explaining that the engines have a long lead-in time for delivery from Nissan with a further period required for the build up of the motor as a racing unit.
Other racing programmes confirmed late in the day (including the second Manor WEC Oreca Nissan) have also put strain on the supply chain.
Whilst there are a very limited number of ‘stock’ engines (Gibson normally retain one for instance) these are high cost items and, in general, most teams will have a single engine per car and, in the case of Greaves and most other teams, do not retain a spare engine in the workshop. Strenuous efforts were made to identify an appropriate and available engine but the clock was ticking and time finally ran out.
