With the 2024 entry list for the 24 Hours of Le Mans set to be revealed in the coming days, DSC can reveal one car that won’t feature after Algarve Pro Racing’s Sam and Stewart Cox confirmed to DSC today that the Portuguese-based team will not be seeking their third automatic invitation earned via the team’s win on Sunday in the Asian Le Mans Series, their fourth Championship win in Asia!
Algarve Pro Racing (APR) already have automatic invitations to enter courtesy of their Championship-winning successes in Europe and North America (the second via the Crowdstrike Racing by APR entry in the Michelin Endurance Challenge).
“We thought long and hard about it, our first decision was that the sheer logistics of three cars might compromise the quality of all of them. We want to show the best effort that we can, and we know how to run both cars in a super-competitive fashion. That’s what’s most important for the team, and in particular for our customers,” said Stewart Cox.
“We simply wouldn’t be there without their support and they deserve our very best efforts on their behalf in the biggest race of the lot.”
Unsurprisingly there have been offers from other LMP2 squads to effectively take on the entry but Sam Cox explained that this would not be a road that APR would be going down.
“It’s a tough time for the LMP2 teams, in particular the smaller squads, so effectively adding another entry back into the pool of 15 that we expect to be confirmed seemed the most appropriate thing to do,” added Sam Cox.
With the Asian Le Mans Series Championship-winning entry then back into the ‘pool’, and with APR’s ELMS and Crowdstrike Racing’s IMSA entries set to be joined by confirmed cars for United Autosports (2nd in ELMS), AF Corse (winners ELMS LMP2 Pro-Am) and Cool Racing (ELMS LMP3 winners), a further ten LMP2 entries look set be filled by the ACO Selection Committee.
After bumper entries in Europe, Asia and IMSA, all concerned might well be grateful for the additional available slot!
