FIA World Endurance Championship PREVIEW PART 2 – LMP1 & LMP2

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. Part two of our preview covers the cars at the sharp end of the grid, the wonderful LMP1 and LMP2 prototype classes…

LMP1

The premier class of the World Endurance Championship enters a brave new world at Silverstone this weekend. A radical set of rule changes, the return of Porsche to top-flight sportscar for the first time in 15 years and the arrival of Mark Webber all combine to produce a fascinating 8 car entry.

All three factory teams have taken very different approaches to the new hybrid power based rules, with Audi running in the 2MJ Hybrid power bracket, and Porsche and Toyota opting to run in the 6MJ band. This allows Audi to run with proportionally more fuel, in exchange for much less electrical energy per lap.

Audi have also stuck with their tried and tested turbodiesel technology, building a brand new 4-litre twin turbo V6 to sit in the back of the new R18 e-Tron Quattro chassis. The big news on the driver front is the retirement of Allan McNish, the hard charging Scot being replaced by Lucas di Grassi on board the #1 machine. He is joined by the evergreen Tom Kristensen and Loic Duval, who will be looking to defend their 2013 world title.

The #2 entry features an unchanged line up of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, who will be keen to take the initiative and start the 2014 season with a win.

Toyota return with a brand new TS040 chassis, and generated headlines at the Prologue test by quoting a combined petrol-electric power figure of 1,000bhp for the V8 powered car. With such a huge quantity of power available, the car should fly around the fast sweeps of Silverstone.

Alex Wurz leads the driver line up for the #7 entry, sharing with ex-F1 racer Kazuki Nakajima and the vastly experienced Stephane Sarrazin.

Toyota’s #8 car has an arguably stronger driver squad; Anthony Davidson shares with Nicolas Lapierre and former Toro Rosso F1 driver Sebastien Buemi.

Porsche mark their return to premier class sportscar racing with one of the most interesting LMP cars of recent years. The best looking of the new generation LMP1 cars is powered by a two litre, turbocharged, direct injection V4 engine, combined with a pair of electrical energy recovery systems driving all four wheels. The car has run well in preseason testing, and has reportedly shown good reliability over a six hour distance.

Mark Webber headlines a supreme array of driving talent, the Australian jumping straight from the Red Bull F1 cockpit into the World Endurance Championship. He shares the #20 Porsche with Timo Bernhard and young racer Brendan Hartley. The sister #14 entry is crewed by Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and new signing Neel Jani, who steps up from the privateer Rebellion effort.

New car delays have forced Rebellion Racing to press their venerable Lola B12/60 chassis into service one last time. The older cars have been given a weight break, a larger fuel tank and a larger air restrictor in an effort to bridge the gap to the new works teams, but making the podium will be an extremely tall order. Despite this, the Anglo-Swiss team has some real talent on board. The #12 car sees Nicolas Prost and Nick Heidfeld return alongside Mathias Beche, while the #13 entry has Andrea Belicchi, Dominik Kraihamer and reigning GP2 champion Fabio Leimer on board.

LMP2

After a week of turmoil and upheaval in the LMP2 paddock, a field of six cars should line up on the grid at Silverstone on Sunday afternoon, with not one team/driver/chassis combination being carried over from 2013.

Fan favourites Strakka Racing had been due to debut their beautiful new Dome Nissan Coupe, but late technical problems and unsuccessful test at Paul Ricard last week have forced the team to withdraw their entry. The team will also miss the next round of the series in a fortnight at Spa, and will join the championship from the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

International political events are causing a major headache for the Russian SMP Racing squad, as US and European Union sanctions following the Ukrainian crisis have frozen much of their parent company’s funds. The team released a strongly worded statement yesterday condemning the authorities course of action, and have promised that their pair of Oreca Nissans will be on the grid at Silverstone.

Assuming the cars arrive, the cars will feature a mainly Russian driving squad, although spearheaded by experienced Frenchman Nic Minassian. He shares the leading #27 car with Sergey Zlobin and Maurizio Mediani. The #37 entry is crewed by an all Russian line up of Kirill Ladygin, Viktor Shaitar and Anton Ladygin.

LMP2 stalwarts Oak Racing return with a single entry this season, and also gain G-Drive sponsorship, along with the talents of Romain Rusinov. He is joined by experienced amateur Julien Canal, who steps up from the GTE class Chevrolet Corvette he raced last season. The #26 driving squad is completed by the supremely talented Olivier Pla, one of the fastest LMP drivers in the world. The fast corners of Silverstone should suit the low-drag Morgan chassis, so look out for this car, it should be at the sharp end of the LMP2 field on Easter Sunday.

The Chinese KCMG Motorsport team steps up to the WEC full time in 2014, having swapped their Morgan for a brand new Oreca 03 Nissan. Matt Howson, Richard Bradley and Tsuigo Matsuda will take to the grid in one of the most striking, well presented cars in the field.

ADR Delta return to the WEC for a third consecutive season, this time running under the Millennium Racing banner with a pair of Oreca Nissans. The #22 car features the talents of McLaren F1 test driver Oliver Turvey and Australian charger John Martin, who will both have to drive flat out to make up time for veteran gentleman racer Fabien Giroix.

Across the garage, the #23 entry sees Mike Conway, fresh from his IndyCar victory at Long Beach last weekend, sharing with former F1 drivers Shinji Nakano and Stefan Johansson. Both of the Millennium cars will be contenders for victory this weekend.

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