Two French teams are the most recent to confirm their 2022 European Le Mans Series plans.
Duqueine Team #30 is back for another ELMS season, with their ORECA 07 Gibson racer. Two well-known faces at Duqueine Team are back, while a new Silver ranked driver has been snapped up by the team.
Memo Rojas and Richard Bradley are back in the car again. Rojas got a very dramatic end to his 2021 season, when he lost a rear wheel at the season finale in Portimao. That put him into a wild spin, which ended up involving AIM 1 Villorba Corse, who ended up with a huge crash. Both Rojas and Andreas Laskaratos were, fortunately, to be uninjured in the spectacular accident.
Graphics: Duqueine Team
Bradley was part of the KCMG team for a couple of years, before he was back in Asia racing again. He returned to the European circuits a few seasons ago, and quickly found a seat at Duqueine Team. He was off to Algarve Pro Racing in 2021, but comes back to Duqueine Team for 2022.
The two experienced drivers will be joined by Reshad De Gerus. The 18-year-old French driver is new in sportscar racing, but has four years of single-seater experience on his CV. He finished second in the French Formula 4 Championship in both 2018 and 2019, while his Formula Renault Eurocup, and FIA Formula 3 Championship seasons didn’t bring any wins or podiums.
Rojas had Tristan Gommendy and Rene Binder as teammates in 2021, but that wasn’t a winning combination.
The other team is Panis Racing.
They have chosen to keep Julien Canal, who has raced the last few seasons for the team. He is one of the most consistent and fast real Silver ranked drivers, and has even been on the Le Mans podium for the last two years running. He has previously won the race three times with Larbre Competition in GTE Am
Nico Jamin returns to the team, after a single year at United Autosports. Jamin was actually a Duqueine driver prior to that, for two seasons. He started out as a Silver ranked driver, but was upgraded shortly after when he had shown his speed.
Graphics: Panis Racing
Jamin will bring one of his 2021 teammates to Panis Racing. Dutch racing driver Job van Uitert will try to find the speed, that was his trademark in the LMP3 years. He has had it a bit tougher in the LMP2 years, where he has pushed a bit too hard, which has resulted in errors and collisions on the track, no matter if it was onboard United Autosports or Racing Team Nederland. But when he doing a faultless job, he is one of the fastest out there.
Panis Racing #65 will say goodbye to Will Stevens, who has been signed by JOTA, for their FIA WEC season. With that is an automatic entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, he is no longer attractive to Panis Racing, since they are one of the teams who has secured a spot in the 24 hours classic, due to Canal being a big businessman in postal code 72000, where he owns several McDonald’s restaurants, including the one located close to the Mulsanne Straight.
The European Le Mans Series 2022 will have their first round on 17 April at the Circuit Paul Richard, in the south of France, with test sessions in the week leading up to the race weekend.
