ELMS, 6 Hours of Le Castellet - Race Morning & Warm-up

Awaiting Zolder Clarification - All 21 on Track

Rumours persist regarding the future of the Zolder round of the European Le Mans Series, but no official announcement has yet been published. A veil of secrecy has been draped across the Media Centre here at Paul Ricard since the meeting last night between the Series organisers and two representatives from each team. However, with comments rife on Twitter and Facebook, it seems clear that the Belgian venue is off the calendar. In addition, LMP2 teams are understood to have been invited to join the World Endurance Championship at Spa, but at a cost. We await official clarification with interest.

With the May date now dropped from the schedule, the Le Mans Series will not reconvene until Donington in July. That race has been confirmed, following our meeting with Christopher Tate on Friday, but that leaves a gap of over three months in the calendar. The whole situation remains somewhat volatile, and anything but clear.

Thankfully, the skies over Le Castellet remain crystal and blue, and the track action got underway early this morning with deeply contrasting shadows slanting across the mountains. Yes, eight-fifteen did seem like the crack of dawn, particularly to the guys at Curtis Racing Technologies, who worked through until half-four to get the #42 car prepared for warm-up. They were kept company by the mechanics at Boutsen Ginion Racing, also working through to the early hours to have the fire-damaged #45 rebuilt for the race.

All 21 cars took part in the warm-up, with the #45 one of the first to take to the track, completing the session with a best of 1:53.300, seventh overall. Quickest, and fairly emphatically so, was Lucas Ordonez in the Greaves Motorsport Zytek, the team now much happier with the set-up. His time of 1:50.192 was two-tenths quicker than the best for Oak Racing’s Morgan Judd, but a second clear of third-placed Nicolas Minassian in the Seb Loeb Oreca.

Phil Keen confirmed that the CRT efforts through the night had paid dividends, and the #42 turned in a respectable time as quicker of the two LMPC runners. Once again, we saw the ‘Am’ cars getting the better of the ‘Pros’ in GT, with IMSA Porsche topping that section of the chart with a 2:00.337 ahead of Philipp Peter in the Kessel Racing 458. Nobody reported any significant problems, and all looks set now for a race start at midday.