Graff and Panis Racing will be entering the European Le Mans Series 2020 with some new combinations in the cars.
The former will stick to Alexandre Cougnaud for the third year in a row, while James Allen returns to the team. Allen was grabbed by DragonSpeed in the 2019 season, where he raced both their LMP1 and LMP2 cars throughout the season. But he was a full season member of Graff in 2018 but did however race in the orange G-Drive Racing car, where he proved his quality and speed.
They will be joined by Thomas Laurent. Laurent is one of the real hot names in the sportscar world right now. The young Frenchman has a contract with Toyota Gazoo Racing as a development driver, after having impressed for Jackie Chan DC Racing and Rebellion Racing in the previous years in the FIA WEC. He currently races for Signatech Alpine Elf in the FIA WEC, but will be wearing a Graff suit in the ELMS 2020 in car #39.
Photo: JJ Media
There has been a bit of swapping and changing at Panis Racing too. Fabien Barthez is no longer part of the team, so that leaves Olivier Panis as the only name above the door. We have to go quite a few years back since Barthez was actively racing for the team, so it won’t really make much of a difference – only the team name is shorter.
The team has chosen to change their car number to 31 but has stuck to Will Stevens and Julien Canal from last year’s #23. They will be joined by Nico Jamin, who was racing for Duqueine Engineering last year. That should at least keep their overall pace, if not a slight improvement compared to Rene Binder, who was part of that team last year.
Both teams will run ORECA 07 Gibson LMP2 cars.
The ELMS 2020 starts on the first weekend of April at Circuit de Catalunya.
