WEC

The 88th series of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will be taking place this weekend from 19th-20th September as the effects of the corona virus pandemic still affect the race after it was rescheduled to September from the June dates. The spectators will also be absent from the grand stands due to the pandemic as scrutineering will be taking place on the track and not in the city centre as usual. Competition in the LMP1, LMP2, GTE-AM and GTE-PRO classes will be as thrilling as ever as a condensed schedule has been put in place where the nightime run will be longer than the day and the threat of changing weather conditions, where it will probably rain will make the 2020 season more challenging than the previous races. These are the latest photos as the teams prepare at La Sarthe

Porsche has revealed the new pair of liveries for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race that will be happening this weekend. The colour schemes celebrate the Weissach marque’s 1970 Le Mans win with the Porsche 917 driven by Richard Attwood and Hans Herrmann back then. Porsche’s No.91 car will share the same red and white colours as used by Attwood and Herrmann that year, while the No.92 machine will run a variant with black sections in place of red. The two Manthey-run Porsche 911 RSR-19s will be driven by the same drivers for a third year in a row, with Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki aboard the No.91 car and Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen sharing the No.92. Porsche is running only two cars in the GTE Pro ranks for the first time since 2017 owing to the withdrawal of its two CORE autosport-operated IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship cars due to the global coronavirus pandemic. They face opposition from two-car entries from regular FIA World Endurance Championship rivals Ferrari and Aston Martin, as well as two privateer Ferraris entered by the Risi Competizione and Scuderia Corsa teams. It is also the first time the 911 RSR-19, which replaced the previous-generation 911 RSR at the start of the 2019/20 WEC season, will be raced at Le Mans. “We’re competing under completely different circumstances,” commented Porsche’s head of WEC operations Alexander Stehlig. “The climatic conditions in September are different compared to June. “There are still some unknowns in terms of weather, temperatures, performance and tyres. We’ll use the existing data from our WEC and IMSA campaigns as well as the insights gained from testing so that we can hopefully be well sorted for the first free practice session. “We’re competing for the first time with the Porsche 911 RSR-19 here. It’s not only new for us, but also for the ACO, which handles the BoP. We have complete confidence in the expertise and experience of the specialists. “Remaining unchanged, however, are the two driver trios in the cockpits. This will be their third year of working together at Le Mans. That’s a strength we will build on.”

Ginetta has withdrawn its solo LMP1 entry from this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Ginetta AER G60-LT-P1 has been under Team LNT has been scrapped off the rescheduled World Endurance Championship which will be held in France on 19th-20th September. The chief executive of the Ginetta Company which is under The LNT Group, Matte Lowe said, “ “Team LNT with its Ginetta-AER G60-LT-P1 will not be contesting the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours… New COVID cases in France are at their highest level since the start of the pandemic and with the latest quarantine rules in place when returning, as a factory-based team, this will in effect mean a minimum four-week closure of the Ginetta manufacturing facility, with a knock-on effect on Ginetta’s core UK championships.” “This, coupled with the significantly altered WEC calendar, has meant that after careful consideration, the decision has been taken that the G60-LT-P1 will not contest this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.” The executive added. The car was due to be driven by Guy Smith who is the 2003 Le Mans champion, Chris Dyson who was Smith’s partner in the American Le Mans and works driver Mike Simpson. This leaves only five cars in the LMP1 class being the Toyota TS050 Hybrid Pair, two Rebellion-Gibson R13s and one ByKolles ENSO CLM-Gibson P1/01. Ginetta boss Lawrence Tomlinson stated that they were also not ready in the new WEC series set on November in Bahrain. The outfit has not been competing in WEC since last November when its two entries participated in the Bahrain WEC, the team also missed on the February Austrian fixture and last month’s 6 hours of Spa. The team boss stated that they needed to return the cars to UK for rebuilding for missing Austin and also pre-testing a series of upgrades on the G60 LMP1 over competing at Spa. The team had also narrowed down to one car because they didn’t want to produce necessary spares for two in case a race postponed from June didn’t happen. “The factory will instead focus on testing and refining the cars in preparation for the 2021 season.” Lowe added on a statement from LNT. The team have no further plans to bring the Ginetta for the next season but according to Tomlinson they are hopeful that another team will take over the cars and hence the car will be on the grandfathered basis since there will be introduction of Le Mans Hypercar rules.

Signatech Alpine will be moving to the pinnacle of endurance racing for the 2021 World Endurance Championship as they will enter the series rebranded as Rebellion R-13. This move was reported on Thursday and the news follow closely the announcement of Renault Formula 1 rebranding its name to Alpine for 2021 season, however an official announcement is expected on Monday. It is alleged that the signatech team will be operating one of the three R-13 chassis on loan from Oreca which currently owns the car and it is expected that it will be rebranded in the same way as Oreca 07 LMP2 car known as Alpine A-470. Rebellion Racing had confirmed earlier this year that they would be dropping out of endurance racing after the end of 2019/2020 World Endurance Season but according to sources the team confirmed that it has no plans to sell or loaning out the two Oreca-Gibsons cars that remain under their ownership. The current Signatech LMP2 drivers Andre Negrao and Nathanael Berthon who will be driving for Rebellion in the upcoming Le Mans 24 Hours, have been reported to be the contenders for the new drive. This comes as Thomas Laurent who was with Rebellion in 2018/2019 season and now currenltly with Signatech might also be considered for the ride. Signatech will be moving to the LMP1 class which has only attracted Toyota, Bykolles and Glickenhaus although there was the introduction of LMH(Le Mans Hypercar) which may leave Signatech to be the only current-gen Lmp1 on the grid unless Ginetta is able to find a customer willing to continue operating its G60-LT-P1 beyond the end of this season. It also raises the prospect of Alpine gearing up to commit to either the LMH formula or the LMDh ruleset that the WEC will share with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which was originally planned to come on stream in 2022 but could be delayed by a year. In such a scenario, Alpine would face off against fellow French marque Peugeot when the latter joins the WEC field with a new hybrid-powered contender some time in 2022.

Toyota Gazoo Racing have been handed a weight penalty ahead of this month’s 24 hours of Le Mans double points round for the World Endurance Championship. This comes as the weight for the toyota TS050 Hybrid which raced last year exceeding by 7Kg compared to the edition they are looking forward to present this year. The last year’s car weighed 888Kgs whreas this year’s car weighed 895Kgs creating the 7Kg gap. The new weights of the car were published on the Equivalence of technology table on Wednesday and are significantly low compared to the weights in the previous years which had a record maximum of 932Kgs, reflecting the higher per-kilometre levels of hybrid energy deployment allowed on regular WEC tracks compared with the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans. The weights for the normal and turbocharged versions of the toyota cars remain at 816Kgs and 833Kgs respectively as per the Equivalence of Technology table released on Wednesday. The maximum amount of petrol that can be used by the cars has also been increased so as to enable Rebellion, Ginetta and the Bykolles racing cars to achieve at least 11 laps between the pitstops as the Toyotas. This comes as the equality of stint length between the hybrid and the non-hybrid LMP1 cars being a major change made ahead of the 2019/2020 World Endurance Championship. Privateers in the championship were also given a one second advantage on being informed the time it takes to fuel the cars as the refuelling restrictor diameter were increased for both the normal and the hybrid cars. This creates a level playing field for the two classes(normal and hybrid) of cars to compete in 2019/2020 WEC Le Mans. Aston Martin Vantage GTEs boost levels have been incresed from last year’s, this is after the boost levels were reduced on the british cars on the Friday of the Le Mans week after Sorensen claimed th pole position for the GTE Pro.

ByKolles Racing Team has revealed its stunning new car for the No. 4 Enso CLM P1/01 Gibson car which will race at the upcoming 24 Hours of Le Mans, round 7 of FIA WEC Season 8. The new body features ByKolles’ well-known yellow and black colour scheme but sees an updated design by Mark Antar, confirmed to drive the LMP1 car at Le Mans will be its regular drivers Tom Dillmann and Oliver Webb, plus Bruno Spengler who joined the squad for his LMP1 debut at Spa-Francorchamps last month. “We collaborated with livery designer Mark Antar Design for the second consecutive year to create a new look for our 2020 contender. He delivered our best and most refined livery to date along with stunning 3D visuals to showcase the design in its full glory.” Boris Bermes the head of operations said 

Automobile Club de l’Ouest released the latest entry list to the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Tuesday 25.08.2020. The federation had cancelled the race which normally runs in June and later pushed it to September due to the covid 19 pandemic. The list comprises of 59 teams in the different racing classes. The LM P1 class will comprise 6 teams, LM P2 will have 23 teams, LM GTE Pro consisting of 8 teams and LM GTE Am 22 teams. Get the full list here. The race had been rescheduled from 13-14th June to September 19-20th having close to half of the race happening in darkness unlike races in the previous years. This means that the teams have to come up with new racing strategies. There will be no spectators for the first time ever due to the covid 19 pandemic.

The FIA World Endurance Championship season finale at the Bahrain circuit in November has been moved forward as a result of scheduling of two Formula 1 races at the same venue. The second eight hour fixture of the 2019/2020 World Endurance Championship at the Bahrain circuit had been set for November 21 but has now been moved up to November 14. This fixture change occured as a result of the november 29 and December 6 Formula 1 grand prix that were announced on Tuesday. This date change means that the round eight of the 2019/2020 WEC season will now clash with the 12 hours of Sebring which will be the final event of this year’s WeatherTech SportsCar championship in North America. WEC boss Gerard Neveu said “As we stated very clearly when we announced our revised calendar in April, dates were subject to further change according to the evolution of the current health crisis, or because of the calendars of other FIA world championships. “We are very fortunate that BIC is ready and willing to be so accommodating and, indeed, welcoming to the WEC in what will be an extremely busy period for them.” The boss also added that the clash with Sebring was less fortunate and the compressed racing schedules in the remaining half of the year have been brought about due to an unprecedented situation and believed that there would be minimal impact on both series. This is the second time that the FIA Bahrain WEC season had been moved as it had originally been scheduled to be round five of the 2020/2021 season on December 5. The 2020 Bahrain WEC will start as planned at 2:00 pm and finish 10:00 pm local time.