Author: Jens Jensen

Three untroubled practice sessions in Barcelona

Jens Jensen

European Le Mans Series managed to run three quite unproblematic practice sessions prior to this afternoon’s qualifying and tomorrow’s race at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. First practice had the defending champions from United Autosports #22 as the fastest LMP2 car, right ahead of fastest LMP2 Pro/Am var, Cool Racing #37. The Pro/Am designation is new to LMP2 in Europe, and includes the teams that have a Bronze-rated driver in the car. Graff #8 was the fastest amongst the LMP3 cars, while TF Sport Aston Martin #95 was fastest amongst the GTE…

Read More

Late changes in Barcelona

Jens Jensen

There have been a few late changes ahead of the opening round of the European Le Mans Series 2021, which will run this weekend at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. AF Corse Ferrari #88 with Francois Perrodo, Alessio Rovera, and Emmanuel Collard has withdrawn due to a positive COVID-19 test amongst the drivers. The car only tested on Tuesday, with only Rovera posting laptimes. The team has since then slowly packed their kit into the trailer. Panis Racing #65 is partly hit by the same issue. James Allen was tested positive for…

Read More

ARC Bratislava ready with four drivers

Jens Jensen

ARC Bratislava is ready for the FIA World Endurance Championship 2021. The Slovakian team will enter their first full FIA WEC season, competing in their Ligier JS P217 Gibson in the LMP2 Pro/Am category. Team owner Miro Konopka is of course the first choice regarding the drivers. He has chosen to sign up Oliver James Webb for the full season – with the exception of the opening round, which clashes with a racing series in the United Kingdom. Webb will be replaced by Darren Burke at Spa Francorchamps. Burke has…

Read More

Iron Dames version 1.0 back together

Jens Jensen

After a lot of switching forth and back, the original Iron Dames line-up is back together. The team, which will be competing in both the European Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship this year, has had a lot of driver swaps over the last couple of weeks. The original plan was for the three drivers, who have raced in the ELMS together, Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey, and Manuela Gostner, to move into FIA WEC as a pairing. Frey and Gostner would also continue in the European Le…

Read More

HubAuto Racing moves to GTE Pro

Jens Jensen

HubAuto Racing has chosen to move into the GTE Pro category for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Taiwanese team is traditionally an Am team in the Asian Le Mans Series, and had their debut at Circuit de la Sarthe in 2020 in the GTE Am category. There are currently 7 cars entered in GTE Pro, while there are (were) 24 in GTE Am. So the chances of a GTE Pro podium are statistically better. After the switch for HubAuto Racing, the balance is 8/23. The team hasn’t…

Read More

Dalla Lana presents teammates

Jens Jensen

Paul Dalla Lana has finally presented the two teammates, who are going to race alongside him in the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship season. The Canadian, who is going to participate in GTE Am, has chosen to stay with Aston Martin Racing, even though the team pulled out of GTE Pro. Dalla Lana has re-hired Augusto Farfus, which he shared the car with through the second part of the 2019/20 season, and chose another Brazilian as a third driver – Marcos Gomes. Farfus has plenty of experience with GT cars,…

Read More

Chaotic Race 1 in Rome

Jens Jensen

ABB FIA Formula E World Championship was finally back on track for their 2020/21 season, after an almost two months break. The electric series had travelled to Rome in Italy, for a different track layout than their previous visits to the city. Stoffel Vandoorne had taken Pole Position for the Mercedes EQ team. Andre Lotterer had driven the TAG-Heuer Porsche car into second, ahead of Oliver Rowland in Nissan e.dams, Lucas di Grassi in Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler, Jean-Eric Vergne in DS Techeetah, and Robin Frijns in Envision Virgin Racing,…

Read More

Inter Europol with all seats taken

Jens Jensen

Things have finally turned around for Inter Europol Competition, so they can indeed run two cars at the European Le Mans Series 2021 season opener in Barcelona, next weekend. Two drivers for their car #13 were announced a couple of weeks ago, alongside the announcement, that the seats in their other LMP3 car were all empty due to travel restrictions. But they don’t do that any longer. Julius Adomavicius, Alessandro Bracalente and Mattia Pasini will be racing car #14. Especially the latter might right a bell for some motorsport fans.…

Read More

Porsche announces Portimao and Le Mans drivers

Jens Jensen

Porsche has announced the six drivers, who will do the longer rounds of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship. The standard length is six hours in an FIA WEC event, but the Portimao round in Portugal will be eight hours, plus the race will serve as warm up race for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Car #91 will once again be raced by Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz throughout the full season. The Italian-Austrian pairing will once again have Frenchman Frederic Makowiecki join them. Those three have been paired…

Read More

IMSA double at Watkins Glen

Jens Jensen

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will double their Watkins Glen races for 2021. The series once again had to cancel their race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, to avoid in and outbound travel to Canada due to the COVID-19 situation. They have decided to make the decision already, so the teams won’t have to worry about quarantine rules or such, which potentially could make travel difficult. The replacement will be a double at Watkins Glen near New York for two weeks in a row. Watkins Glen missed out on a…

Read More

Lynn returns to UA

Jens Jensen

Alexander Lynn will return to United Autosports for at least one race. The Brit will share car #23 with Paul Di Resta at the 24 Hours Of Le Mans this August, with a not yet announced third driver. Lynn has previously raced for the British-American team, when he participated in the Gulf 12 Hours in Abu Dhabi in 2016. Back then he raced an LMP3 car. An ORECA 07 Gibson in the LMP2 category will be the choice of vehicle this time around. This pairing is also two Le Mans…

Read More

Proton Competition with incredibly strong ELMS line-up

Jens Jensen

Proton Competition will enter the European Le Mans Series 2021 with the probably strongest line-up possible in a GTE Am car. The German team are defending Champions in the ELMS, finishing equal on points with Kessel Racing. Thankfully, there was more than one Le Mans auto-invite for the category, so it was “only” the big trophy and the title is different. The team will do everything to secure the title again in commanding style. Porsche 911 RSR-19 #77 has team owner Christian Ried alongside one of his FIA World Endurance…

Read More

Reserve list for LM24 2021 revealed

Jens Jensen

Automobile Club de l’Ouest has revealed the reserve list for the 2021 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are a total of four teams on that list. The first one is AF Corse with an extra Ferrari 488 GTE Evo for the GTE Am category. The car is already fully crewed by Christophe Ulrich, Simon Mann and Sergei Sirotkin, with car number 62. The second reserve is an extra Algarve Pro Racing car for the LMP2 category. Mark Patterson and Naveen Rao are the named drivers for…

Read More

ByKolles continues work on Hypercar

Jens Jensen

ByKolles Racing Team still have plans for racing their own Hypercar. The team has raced in sportscars on-off since 2009, where they started running some Audi R10 TDi cars in a couple of seasons, and turned into building their own cars throughout the ’10s. The new car currently holds the description as PMC Project LMH, but it will get its real designation in due course. The team has chosen to make a deal with Tom Dillmann and Esteban Guerrieri, who will be the test drivers of the new car. Dillmann…

Read More

LMP2 slowed even further

Jens Jensen

The LMP2 category in the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le Mans Series will have their on-track performance slowed even further than initially planned. Automobile Club de l’Ouest has announced, that they have to slow the LMP2 category a bit more since the performance gap to the new Hyperar category otherwise would be too small. It’s been planned for a long time, that LMP2 would have a slight power reduction, but that now turned into 400kW power output compared to the 450kW last year. That…

Read More

More colours and more drivers presented

Jens Jensen

With only one and a half weeks until the start of the pre-season testing, there are more and more announcements coming from the European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup teams. Inter Europol Competition has announced Belgian driver Ugo de Wilde for the ELMS. The 18-year-old racing driver has a single-seater background, having run in French F4 amongst other series. His big goal is to participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023, and he is hoping to find the budget to do the Road To Le…

Read More

Iron Dames with significant changes

Jens Jensen

The Iron Dames programme will have quite a different look, compared to what was previously announced for the 2021 season. The outfit, which is a part of the Iron Lynx team, did reveal their driver line-up just over a month ago, but has opted to shake things up a bit shortly before the season start. The original plan was to have the previous ELMS driving team of Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Manuela Gostner move up to FIA World Endurance Championship for the 2021 season, but that is going to…

Read More

IMSA adjusts Detroit date

Jens Jensen

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has made some slight changes to the schedule once again. This time around it’s the Detroit date being pushed back one week, so the race will be run on 12 June. The change happens as a reaction to the Le Mans being moved to August, making it possible for IMSA to run the same weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series. That brings a positive effect, that the GTLM category can participate in the race too. The race won’t count towards their championship, since they already have…

Read More

The next two FE weekends announced

Jens Jensen

ABB FIA Formula E World Championship has announced their next two race weekends on the 2021 schedule. Rome and Valencia have been the two next cities to host the races. Those two weekends have been upgraded to be double rounds. The changes is naturally due to the COVID-19 situation, that continues to hamper travelling around the world. The opening round in Saudi Arabia was also a double round, but that was planned from the start, since they wanted to use the lighting system around the track to the fullest. The…

Read More

Points standings post Sebring

Jens Jensen

The points standings after Round 2 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 2021 at Sebring International Raceway has a slightly different look, than what it initially looked like, when the cars roared past the chequered flag. The results were affected in no less than two categories with demotions. Ally Racing Cadillac #48 was sent to the back of the results in DPi, due to Simon Pagenaud being 50 seconds too long in the car, within a period of 6 hours. The rules state that you can’t be in the car…

Read More