LMS Announce 5 Race 2012 Calendar

After an odd delay post Zhuhai’s FIA WEC calendar announcement the Le Mans Series has today finally revealed a five race calendar for the 2012 season.

The Series describe their 2012 offering as being “held on circuits chosen for their very selective layouts that will highlight the competitors' driving skills.”  Despite the delay it looks remarkably similar to the calendar previewed here some weeks ago.

It offers a return to Donington Park for the first time since a one-off LMS appearance in 2006 and two debutants in modern day ACO racing - Zolder and Brno.

The Zolder race though provides a potentially serious clash, the 6 hour race uo against the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring!

After the now traditional pre-season test weekend on 9-10 March at the Paul Ricard HTTT (High Tech Test Track) circuit, the season proper will be composed as follows with a standard 6 hour race format:

30 March - 1 April - Le Castellet (5.8km circuit layout)
18-20 May - Zolder
13-15 July - Donington Park
7-9 September - Brno
2-4 November - Portimao - Circuito de Algarve (Night race format under consideration)

It seems that there will be automatic entries for the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours for the class winners of all 5 2012 LMS classes (LMP2, LMPC, LM GTE Pro, LM GTE Am and GTC ) plus, we presume, the Green Challenge winners once again.  At this stage we presume the LMPC class winners will be offered an LMP2 slot and the GTC winner a GTE slot.