Le Mans Series Spa 1000kms Race Preview Part II

GT1

This won’t take long!

No Larbre Saleen here, With no prospect of a Le Mans entry the campaign in the Le Mans Series seems to have melted away.

Luc Alphand Aventures' Corvette will likely be duking it out for class honours with the winning car from Spain last month, the Lamborghini Murcielago – Peter Kox is confirmed in the car but will Roman Rusinov be there too?  We’re not sure but the Lambo will be on the grid.

Finally the fourth car entered is limbering up for Le Mans.  The JetAlliance Aston Martin will see Alex Muller adding spice to the cocktail of Thomas Gruber and Lucas Lichtner –Hoyer aboard the DBR9

GT2

15 in GT2 with a couple of newbies to point out.

Advanced Engineering (aka AF Corse) brings out a Ferrari 430 for Matt Griffin and Peter Bamford – Welcome to the LMS boys

Reiter Engineering meanwhile debut their brand new Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 with racing royalty in the driving seat, Christophe Bouchut!  He’ll be joined by a real Prince – Albert von Thurn und Taxis.  The car looks great, sounds great but still needs development – It is though great to see more variety in GT2.

Two other cars providing more variety are provided by the Snoras Spyker Squadron and Drayson racing.

The Dutch team really struggled in Spain and will be hoping for better reliability here.

Sadly Jarek Janis is out after a recurrence of his back injury, replaced by Peter Dumbreck.  If – and it’s a big if – the boys can pull a reliable car off the truck this car could – and it’s a big could – feature.

Drayson Racing meanwhile are getting to grips with the prospect of a (whisper it) reliable car!  After his Lordship tried the LMP1 Lola Aston for size in Algarve he’s back in the driving seat in the Vantage GT2, surely one of the best sounding cars on the grid, ably assisted by both Jonny Cocker and Marino Franchitti.  Can the youngsters get the team off the back benches?

Just four Porsches start in GT2 but two of them are potential winners.  Whilst the #88 Felbermayr Proton car will need luck to feature, the #77 car will be battling to double up it’s Spanish win.  Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz have Horst Felbermayr Snr named in the car with them – Will he drive? Time will tell.

The IMSA Performance car failed last time out but don’t count out Raymond Narac and Patrick Pilet – another potent Porsche pairing

A late addition to the entry was a Prospeed 997 RSR - this though is the ex- JWA campaigned here by the car owner Paul Daniels and Spa specialist Markus Palttala.

Finally there’s a veritable stampede of prancing horses, no less than nine 430GTs are on the list with JMB, Easyrace, Virgo, Team Modena, FBR (x 2) Hankook and JMW joining the Advanced Engineering car on the grid.

On pace the form cars here should be the JMW pairing of Bell and Bruni, the Hankook hired hands, Simonsen and Kaffer, FBR’s #90 car wth Pierre Ehret ably assisted by Beltoise and Farnbacher and Team Modena with Leo Mansell and Antonio Garcia.

This could be quite a race, bit will the Ferraris be able to overcome the superior straight line speed of the Porsches this time out.

We’ll let you know as soon as the dsc team arrives at the track on Friday morning.

Tune in to Radio Le Mans if you can’t make it – If you can then take a radio, English language commentary will be on tap with David Addison doing the honours.  It could be quite a weekend!

GG