Paul Ricard Test Days – The IPB Spartak Racing
Lamborghini

Here’s an item specifically about one (Le Mans) entry – or is it two?

Running into the small hours here are two cars, one of the Courage-ORECAs (running a full 24 hour test) and the Inter Progress Bank Lamborghini. Hans Reiter and Igor Mazepa were keen to bring us up to date on Lamborghini GT1 news, and the new sponsor to GT1 racing.

The team somehow missed their flight to the south of France, but Peter Kox was here on Saturday and “I organised the tyres and the entry, and got things ready for when the team arrived, but Sunday morning was a bit hectic.”

Peter Kox, straight out of the car at about 01.30 (Monday morning), remarked on “a lot of new stuff on the car for this year, but as you can see, already the car is reliable, the pace is good and the tyres are good”.

Kox and Roman Rusinov are the two nominated drivers, so far, for this year, and they’ll be racing in the Le Mans Series and in the FIA GT Championship. But further driver(s) will perhaps be needed this year….

“We’ve been working on the aerodynamics, as you can see,” says Hans Reiter, “and we have new electrical components on the car. We spent the day (Sunday) testing the car and some tuning (set-up) work, and the plan was always to start an endurance run at 20.00. We booked the 24 hour test in case we had some problems during the day and had to start a long run later, but it all went to plan. We’ll stop at about 02.30, and come back at 09.00 on Monday morning.”

As we spoke the Murcielago clocked up about five and a half hours of consistent running – very consistent, as it turned out.

“Peter has done a 1:56 dead at the end of a two hour stint on one set of tyres. Our fastest time here, on fresh rubber, is only seven-tenths faster, so we’re very pleased.”

The plan is to run from 09.00 to 17.00 on Monday “by which time the two drivers will be exhausted!”

So all good news from Reiter Engineering – and all very promising for the new sponsor, the Inter Progress Bank. Igor Mazepa is the man who has brought the sponsor to the Le Mans Series, FIA GTs and Le Mans – and it was he who ‘found’ Hans Reiter and the Lamborghini project, and felt that here was the perfect international partner for the bank.

“The plan is firstly to promote the bank and market the name in Europe – but we are also proud to be in this international environment,” begins Igor Mazepa. “We are portraying ourselves as Russian and international, so we are partners with Hans and his German / international team, and their technical abilities. He has an Australian engineer (next to you here), Peter Kox is from Holland – and this international mix will be racing against the Corvettes, which is an all-American team. But we’re much more international, and that’s what we want to be: Russian and international.

“We also want to show that Russia is changing, that we are integrating into the EU. The two international series in Europe are helping us do this.”

The full name of the team is Inter Progress Bank Spartak Racing, “because the bank owns the Spartak Moscow Hockey Club. We chose Roman Rusinov because he is a champion in the Le Mans Series, and we are currently managing all the options for the third driver at Le Mans.”

Igor Mazepa is very aware that it is one Lamborghini against four each from Corvette and Aston Martin at Le Mans, “and we want to do Le Mans with two cars. We applied for two entries, and our second car is second reserve on the list.

“But I feel it is going to happen – that we will have two cars at Le Mans.”

That will obviously require two to drop out from the 55. Whether two do drop out or not, the determination of these two fellows, and the whole Reiter Engineering team, will surely see a very strong performance from at least one Raging Bull in June. We wish them well.