The Spanish team Racing Engineering will enter with three French drivers in the upcoming European Le Mans Series season.
After 13 seasons of GP2 and Formula 2 racing, the focus will be on sportscars this year.
Oliver Pla will be the most experienced driver at the team. The 36 year-old driver is currently works driver for Ford in their GT programme, but has previously had connections with Onroak, where he was part of developing Ligier and Morgen LMP2 cars. So it’s a bit of a surprise that he is going to be racing in an ORECA 07 Gibson this year.
Photo: Racing Engineering
Norman Nato is already known by the team, since he drove GP2 for them in 2016. Nato has driven a lot of single seaters prior to that. He did two seasons in Formula Renault 3.5 before getting two seasons of GP2. Among many team mates, he raced with now Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen in the 3.5 series for the DAMS team in 2013, where the Dane claimed the Championship. But sportscars will be something brand new for the 25 year-old racing driver.
Paul Petit is, despite his only 24 years of age, used to racing in sportscars. He got his debut for Graff in the LMP3 category of the ELMS in 2016, before being upgraded to their LMP2 car in 2017. He finished second in the LMP3 Championship, with 4 out of 6 possible podium positions, with two class wins included. Last year he grabbed two podium positions in LMP2.
All the ELMS cars will be on track in exactly one weeks time, before the first race of the season will be run later in the week.
