FIA WEC, Silverstone - Race Preview

Part Two - LMP2

The most numerically strong class is also the one that has seen most noticeable attrition since the announcement of the provisional full season entry list.

Confirmed as withdrawn from the WEC are the HVM Status outfit - their Lola Judd coupe will be missed, as will their excellent standards of preparation.

Another confirmed withdrawal, very sadly, is the Starworks squad that convincingly won the class silverware last year.  A long battle to confirm the funding that would bring the team back to the Championship was declared lost this week – We’ll have to wait and see whether 2014 will see the popular squad return.

And there’s another pair of cars struggling to make the grid for the full season that have declared force majeure for Round One - Gulf Racing Middle East have confirmed that they will miss the opening round with their pair of Nissan engined Lola Coupes.  The team are citing logistical issues but are known to be struggling to attract pay drivers to the fray.  For now we'll suggest that they may not yet be out of the game but the clock is ticking.

That still leaves a total of ten LMP2s for the opening round, nine of which are full season WEC players.

The class is dominated by Nissan powered runners with eight of the 10 'Powered by NISMO'

Lotus LMP2 - Lotus T128 Judd

The odd men out are the Lotus LMP2 squad with their Judd (BMW) V8 powered cars.

There's been a big change though for the Romulus and Colin Kolles run squad though as the pre-season tests saw the first track running for their new Lotus T128 coupe, these cars replacing the Lola's that the team ran in 2012.

It is very early days indeed for this package but applying the well known racing tenet "if it looks fast it is fast" should mean that the T128 has real potential - Quite when it will be ready to deliver on that will be interesting to watch.

The #31 car will again be campaigned by American historic racer Kevin Weeda and recent F1 refugee Vitantonio Liuzzi.  they'll be joined after Silverstone by quick Brit James Rossiter with the quick but sometimes surly French veteran Christophe Bouchut filling in for round one.

The #32 car sees young German Thomas Holzer again anchoring the effort, joined by ex Oak hotshoe Dominik Kraihamer and previous LMS champion Jan Charouz.

Greaves Motorsport - Zytek Z11SN - Nissan

The sole example of the Zytek chassis in the WEC is again campaigned by the UK based Greaves Motorsport outfit, once again powered by Nissan's V8 powerplant.

Their surprise line-up for the early part of the season is team stalwart (and multiple Le Mans class champion) Tom Kimber-Smith who will be joined by Dyson Racing boss Chris Dyson and his sometime charge Michael Marsal, the US based pair apparently intend to contest the first two rounds of the WEC ( and the opening round of the European Le Mans Series too.

Pecom Racing - Oreca 03 Nissan

The first of a trio of full season entries mating the Nissan V8 to the Oreca 03 chassis, Pecom, still run from within the AF Corse stable for Argentinian ice cream magnate Luis Perez Companc.

The team saw a major turnaround in form mid season last year when Soheil Ayari ceded his seat to Nicolas Minassian, the ex Peugeot man instantly found something that Ayari hadn't and the Pecom car was in the hunt.  Pierre Kaffer completes the lineup and adds even further pace to the package - Pecom are the only full season LMP 2 squad to have confirmed they will run the new Michelin rubber as the Clermont Ferrand based tyre maker makes a reappearance in the market.

If the Oreca reliability woes have been gripped this car could be a real contender.

G-Drive by Delta - ADR - Oreca 03 Nissan

2012's second placed team ADR - Delta becomes Delta - ADR for 2013 and expands the effort to two cars with the addition of the ex Signatech-run G-Drive sponsored programme.

Both cars are Nissan V8 powered Oreca 03 chassis with the team seeing something of a reshuffle on the driver front too.

Tor Graves stays with 'his' #25 car from last year but is joined by a pair of new team-mates, yet another ex F1 man, Antonio Pizzonia and ex JMW Motorsport man James Walker

The #26 G-Drive car sees Rusinov joined by 2012 ADR - Delta standout Aussie John Martin and Indycar star Mike Conway.

This is a team to watch with high standards of preparation and strategy.

Oak Racing - Morgan Nissan

Oak Racing may have stepped away, for now at least, from their LMP1 programme but they remain deadly serious about their LMP2 programme.

The cars retain their Morgan branding for a second year and retain too the Nissan V8 power that gave them real pace throughout the 2012 season.

What they lacked then was consistency and reliability and the off season has been spent addressing the frustrations that thwarted the ambitions of the team, and their Onroak manufacturing arm.

The response for 2013 is a strong one with no fewer than three factory entered cars for the WEC, two of which might well be real contenders.

The #24 car features the mercurial Olivier Pla as the anchor, Pla is, hands down one of the very fastest of all in the WEC and will be at the sharp end for sure this year if the Morgan chassis is up to the challenge. 

Pla is joined by Alex Brundle, the young Englishman continuing to pursue a career in sportscar racing after a very encouraging first season in 2012.

The required Silver rated driver in this squad is the highly rated David Heinemeier Hansson, the US based Dane impressed in the ALMS in similar machinery in 2012 and would love to deliver on that potential on the world stage.

The #35 car too looks a very encouraging prospect with Bertrand Baguette joined by ex Greaves Motorsport man Ricardo Gonzalez and the other half of the 2012 ALMS Morgan effort, rapid Englishman Martin Plowman.  This might be a dark horse for real achievement in 2013.

The third Morgan Nissan features Onroak owner and real racing gentleman Jacques Nicolet alongside fellow gentleman driver Jean-Marc Merlin in a car not entered for the full WEC. 

There's a fourth Morgan Nissan for the early rounds of the WEC as the Chinese owned KCMG team get up to speed ahead of the late start for the Asian Le Mans Series.