FIA WEC, 6 Hours of Silverstone - Race Preview - Pt 1 - LMP1

Life is about to get very, very busy again at DSC Towers with the FIA WEC about to enter a pretty frenzied period, the inaugural World Championship will be decided over five six hour races in the next nine weeks.

That means lots of Air Miles, the odd lost bag, a whole load of excitement and the inevitable twists and turns of 60 hours of race action.

The first six hours of course come this weekend at Silverstone – Cue the delights of ‘The Wing’ and its charming Park and Ride experience – Probably the only place in the world where you’ll find ex F1 stars and members of the public sharing a hanging strap on a Stagecoach single decker of dubious cleanliness standards!

At least when we get there we’ll have a very impressive 35 car grid to savour – albeit only on TV from the press room (and for that matter from the commentary booths too!)

LMP1 (7 Cars)

1 Audi Sport Team Joest André Lotterer/ Benoit Tréluyer/ Marcel Fässler Audi R18 e-tron Quattro
2 Audi Sport Team Joest Tom Kristensen/ Allan McNish Audi R18 ultra
7 Toyota Racing Alexander Wurz/ Nicolas Lapierre/ Kazuki Nakajima Toyota TS030-Hybrid
12 Rebellion Racing Nicolas Prost/ Neel Jani/ Lola B12/60 Coupé-Toyota
13 Rebellion Racing Andrea Belicchi/ Harold Primat Lola B12/60 Coupé-Toyota
21 Strakka Racing Nick Leventis/ Danny Watts/ Jonny Kane HPD ARX-03a-Honda
22 JRM David Brabham/ Peter Dumbreck/ Karun Chandhok HPD ARX-03a-Honda

First the bad news – We’ve lost a pair of petrol privateers from the full season entry list.

Oak Racing have withdrawn their Judd engined Pescarolo for the remainder of the season with an outline indication that they’ll consider a return next season.

Pescarolo team meanwhile have hit major budget trouble, have filed for creditor protection and look unlikely to be back (Fuji perhaps excepted) for the remainder of 2012 either, certainly the Pescarolo 03 is unlikely to run again in Henri’s hands.

There is though some good news – At Silverstone we’ll finally get the opportunity for the first time in 2012 to see a battle between two factory teams in LMP1, Audi’s two car effort faced off for the remainder of the season by a solo Toyota effort.

Audi once again field a hybridised R18 e-tron Quattro and a diesel only R18 ultra, both will feature some mild aero tweaks after post Le Mans testing/

The #1 car is crewed by 2011 and 2012 Le Mans winners Messrs Treluyer, Fassler and Lotterer and it’s the Le Mans wining crew that have the hybrid car to play with.  It proved fast and pretty reliable at Le mans, though post race it was revealed that the winning car was running without hybrid power in the latter stages of the race.

The #1 crew do not though lead the Drivers Championship post Le Mans.  That honour goes to the sister #2 R18 ultra, the lead of the Championship is currently shared by Silverstone pilots Allan McNish and tom Kristensen plus Dindo Capello.  The popular Italian though will not be adding to his points tally as he steps back from the Ingolstadt endurance programme after a stunning career.

Will Audi continue their Le Mans policy of allowing their team cars to race, and race hard, against each other?  The drivers will surely hope so, but the decision may not be completely in their hands as the Toyota Racing boys will be out to spoil the party

The still very new TS030 impressed on its racing debut at Le Mans, briefly leading the race until a muffed overtaking manoeuvre started the #7 car on a downward slide towards ultimate retirement.

That happened though at around the 6 hour mark and there can be confidence therefore that the car could well be competitive over a ‘normal’ endurance race distance.

We expect the car to arrive at Silverstone with a quite different aero package to its trimmed out ‘missile’ spec at Le Mans.  A good race performance will be vital for Toyota.  There’s no hope of a Championship for them – But race finishes, podiums and wins are surely on the todo list!

The remaining quartet of petrol powered privateers are a high quality group.

Rebellion Racing had a stunning run at Le Mans, both cars had speed and reliability – The #12 car in and a fighting fourth overall was a great reward for their endeavours, an emotional result for very many reasons, a long overdue one for the team, a near record result for the troubled Lola marquee and a good result too for TMG’s customer V8!

The Rebellion boys will need to be on their game again this weekend, and will be keen to impose further authority on the LMP1 privateer points battle too where they hold a 24 point advantage over the chasing JRM squad.

Both of the HPD equipped teams meanwhile are on home ground of course – Strakka will be facing their first race since the departure of Piers Phillips but arrive with confidence on the back of some constructive testing.  The HPD should be quick around Silverstone and all three drivers know the circuit well.

Their target of course is to finish as high up the order as possible but the main target for Strakka is surely the similarly equipped JRM squad that head them in the points battle.

They too have been out testing (see story elsewhere on DSC) and they arrive at Silverstone more confident about the base set-up on their car than ever before.

Again all three drivers are familiar with the Silverstone circuit – If you’re looking for two car battles to savour then do consider keeping a close eye on the #21 and #22 cars – It could be a classic!