FIA World Endurance Championship Spa Six Hours LMP1 Preview

Audi will be looking to bounce back from their Silverstone nightmare at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit this weekend, as the FIA World Endurance Championship reconvenes for Round 2 of this years’ series.

Following their double retirement at Silverstone a fortnight ago, Audi will be looking to reassert their dominance over Toyota and LMP1 new-boys Porsche this weekend. The German factory will field three cars at Spa, with the extra #3 car running in Le Mans spec ‘longtail’ bodywork as a test for the French round the clock enduro. Filipe Albuquerque shares the car the Audi test driver Marco Bonanomi. The #1 car features an unchanged driver lineup of Loic Duval, Tom Kristensen and Lucas Di Grassi, whilst the #2 entry again sees Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Tréluyer on duty.

Toyota are also using the Spa round as a test for Le Mans. Following their domination at Silverstone, the Japanese factory has elected to run both cars in low downforce Le Mans spec in Belgium. The fast and flowing Belgian circuit should suit the powerful Toyota TS040, and the #8 crew of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Nicolas Lapierre will be looking to repeat their Silverstone success. The #7 entry also features an unchanged crew of Kazuki Nakajima, Alex Wurz and Stephane Sarrazin.

Porsche will be hoping to be closer to the pace at Spa this weekend. The team ran both cars with a Le Mans aerodynamic package at Silverstone, and they will be hoping the faster Spa-Francorchamps circuit will suit the low-drag setup a little better. The 919 Hybrid showed flashes of pace over a single lap a fortnight ago, but Porsche will want to challenge the established factory teams more consistently over a race distance this weekend. The #14 car again features Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb, while across the garage the #20 machine has Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendan Hartley on board.

Finally, the privateer Rebellion team will be giving a race debut to its own R-One chassis this weekend. The team have managed to prepare two of the new Toyota powered cars for Spa this weekend, with the official launch taking place on the start-finish straight on Thursday morning. The car looks excellent, but getting either car to the finish after extremely limited testing will be a huge achievement for the Anglo-Swiss squad. The #12 car is crewed by Nicolas Prost, Mathias Beche and Nick Heidfeld, and across the garage the #13 machine features Dominik Kraihamer, Andrea Belicchi and Fabio Leimer.

The second round of the FIA WEC takes place on Saturday afternoon, with the race running into the twilight to give the teams a real warm up before Le Mans. Look out for more coverage from the weekend on Paddock 42.

Classifieds Archive

£410000

£54000

POA

SOLD

SOLD

$1000000

$3000

POA

$399500

$115000

$25000

$17000