You probably won’t meet a more genial team boss than Benoit Morand. The Swiss owner of New Blood by Morand Racing also runs a very tight and well organised ship, with a full ELMS campaign and a Le Mans entry this year. DSC caught up with him on race day morning at Paul Ricard.
In Christian Klien, Morand knows has a real star and confirmed to DSC that he has the rapid Austrian already ‘under contract’ for 2015.
“Christian is a big asset to this team for sure,” he said just before the start of the Paul Ricard event, in which they start third. “In fact all of our drivers have done a nice job for us this season, Christian and Gary (Hirsch) have worked well together since the start and then Pierre (Ragues) joined us at Red Bull Ring and fitted in to the team very well as we have known him for a long time of course.”
There are exciting prospects for the team who have a series of new partners, some announced and some to be announced.
“We are agreed on a partnership with a significant UK based company which we will announce very soon,” he confirmed. “It is exciting times for the team. Next season we will have a similar programme to this in terms of the series we run in. We are very happy with the ELMS. As long as the series continues to grow and have this level of stability and competition then we are very happy to race in it.”
And what of 2015, with regard to hardware?
“We will stay with the Morgan-Judd package. We are very happy with both the chassis and the support from Judd. They do a great job. For next season we are evaluating running a second entry and I think that it would be good for the team, but as ever a lot will depend on our partners and their needs too.
“As a team we are looking and actually talking to Jacques Nicolet about the Ligier package. That would be interesting, as it is obviously a nice chassis. If everything continues the way it has for the team so far then the logical thing, if we have the resources commercially, is to run two cars.”
In addition to the above news, this correspondent also took the chance to feed his F3000 geekery appetite and ask Benoit about his exploits racing in the 1980s for the wonderfully named Equipe Dollop in a March-Cosworth. Was there ever a better name for a professional racing team?
Sam Smith
