FIA World Endurance Championship Preview Part 1 – GTE Pro & GTE Am

This weekend sees the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship roar into life with the 6 Hours of Silverstone. With a mouth-watering array of 30 of the world’s finest sportscars due to line up on Easter Sunday, this is set to be one of the UK motorsport events of the season. Paddock42.com will be providing full coverage of the event, starting with all the build up this week. The GTE field is previewed today, with part two covering the prototypes posted tomorrow…

GTE Pro

Three factory teams and a lone privateer makeup the seven car GTE Pro grid, with a huge amount of driving talent assembled.

Aston Martin return with two Pro entries in 2014, Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke leading the V8 Vantage charge in the #97 Gulf liveried machine. The Astons have a 15kg weight limit break this weekend, which should help them keep pace with the factory Porsches and fuel efficient Ferrari 458s.

The sister #99 Aston Martin sees a collaboration between Aston Martin Racing and ex-WTCC team Bamboo Engineering, with Brazilian Fernando Rees sharing with Darryl O’Young and touring car convert Alex MacDowall. It will be interesting to see how this untested combination fares through the course of the season.

AF Corse are out to defend their triple crown of Teams, Drivers and Manufacturers titles from 2013, with reigning champion Gianmaria Bruni sharing with Toni Vilander in the #51 Ferrari. This pairing will be a contender for victory at every round this season.

Across the garage, the #71 car sees Davide Rigon stepping up from the 8Star Motorsports car, and he shares with Ferrari’s newest factory signing, young single seater racer James Calado. The British driver will face an uphill struggle to adapt following a season in GP2, but by Le Mans we should see if we have a future star in the making.

The works Porsche team, run by Olaf Manthey’s experienced squad, fields a pair of ‘Evo’ spec Porsche 991 RSRs, with the lead #91 car featuring a fantastic lineup of Patrick Pilet, Joerg Bergmeister and Nick Tandy.

The #92 squad features Marco Holzer joined by long-time factory driver Richard Lietz and new Porsche signing Fred Mackowiecki. Both of these cars will be contenders for victory, and will push the Ferrari’s and Aston’s very hard for the win.

Finally, RAM Racing are the only privateer entry in the Pro class, with the hugely experienced Matt Griffin joined by McLaren GT factory driver Alvaro Parente. Whilst the Silverstone based squad cannot muster the same resources as the factory teams, but don’t discount them from sneaking a podium after six hours of racing on Sunday.

GTE Am

An eight car entry, with cars from three different manufacturers provides the GTE Am grid for the opening round, with a pair of factory Aston Martins leading a quality field.

The all Danish #95 car returns, looking to bounce back from a truly tragic 2013 season and continue their race winning form. A revised driver line up sees the rapid David Heinemeier-Hansen joining Kristian Poulson and Nicki Thiim.

On other side of the garage, Pedro Lamy joins Paul Dalla Lana and Christoffer Nygaard in the #98 V8 Vantage, with both cars in with a real shout at victory on Sunday afternoon.

Ferrari provide half of the GTE Am grid, with AF Corse running two cars under their own banner, and also providing assistance to 8Star Motorsports. The #61 458 Italia sees Luis Perez Companc step down from his LMP2 Oreca, and he shares with Marco Cioci and Italian GT Championship front runner Mirko Venturi.

The #81 AF Corse machine has one of the most interesting driver line ups in GTE Am, with Stephen Wyatt and Michele Rugolo joined by ex-GP2 racer Sam Bird, who is substituting for regular pilot Andrea Bertolini.

8Star Motorsports return to defend their teams title, with the bright orange Ferrari now fully upgraded to 2013 specification. Team owner Enzo Potolicchio is joined by Gianluca Roda and the extremely fast Paulo Ruberti, who should have no problem troubling the GTE Pro runners at the very front of the GT field.

The final Ferrari comes from British team RAM Racing, with reigning ELMS drivers champion Johnny Mowlem stepping up to the world championship for 2014. He is joined in the beautifully liveried car by ex Top Gear Stig Ben Collins, and gentleman racer Mark Patterson.

Two Porsche’s complete the GTE Am field, with Prospeed fielding a 2012-spec 997 GT3 RSR, and Porsche stalwarts Proton Competition running a brand new 991 RSR.

The older Prospeed car features experienced Porsche racer Manu Collard, sharing with Francois Perrodo and young single-seater charger Matthieu Vaxiviere . The car has been given a 0.6mm air-restrictor boost in an effort to keep pace with newer machinery, but podiums will be a tall order for the Belgian squad.

Proton Competition features the ever-present Christian Reid, sharing with Abu Dhabi based Khalid Al Qubaisi, and 22-year old Austrian Klaus Bachler.

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