Le Mans 2014 & WEC

[Sassy Colin]

The biggest motor race in the World this weekend, I'll be there for my 10th straight year and looking forward to Porsche returning to LMP1.

I was at the Silverstone 6 hours in April and they seemed off the pace, although there was some talk of sandbagging. They have been quick in qualifying but reliability perhaps not quite there yet.

I think Toyota could be in with a very strong chance of overall honours this year, but Audi have so much experience.

Staying at The Village on the Curves again, slumming it with clean toilets and hot showers, excellent catering, beer on draft and big screen showing the whole race. Should be able to see the England vs Italy game too, if I get back in time. I am going to be drinking sooooo much over the next few days, without actually getting properly drunk, which is very satisfying indeed. Weather is set very fair, apart form the first 2 years, when I was using an umbrella to keep the sun off it was so hot, it has rained every year for me, although mostly the races were dry.

Anyway, here is this year's entry list:

LM P1

1. Audi Sport Team JoestAudi R18 e-TRON Quattro Hybrid Lucas di Grassi/Loic Duval/Tom Kristensen
2. Audi Sport Team JoestAudi R18 e-TRON Quattro Hybrid Marcel Fassler/Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer
3. Audi Sport Team JoestAudi R18 e-TRON Quattro Hybrid Filipe Albuquerque/Marco Bonanomi/Oliver Jarvis
7. Toyota RacingToyota TS 040 Hybrid Alexander Wurz/Stephane Sarrazin/Kazuki Nakajima
8. Toyota RacingToyota TS 040 Hybrid Anthony Davidson/Nicolas Lapierre/Sebastien Buemi
12. Rebellion RacingRebellion-Toyota R-One Nicolas Prost/Nick Heidfeld/Mathias Beche
13. Rebellion RacingRebellion-Toyota R-One Dominik Kraihamer/Andrea Belicchi/Fabio Leimer
14. Porsche TeamPorsche 919 Hybrid Romain Dumas/Neel Jani/Marc Lieb
20. Porsche TeamPorsche 919 Hybrid Timo Bernhard/Mark Webber/Brendon Hartley

LM P2

21. Strakka RacingDome Strakka S103 Nissan Nick Leventis/Danny Watts/Jonny Kane
22. Millennium RacingOreca 03 Nissan Fabien Giroix/John Martin/Oliver Turvey
24. Sebastien Loeb RacingOreca 03 Nissan Rene Rast/Jan Charouz/Vincent Capillare
28. G Drive RacingMorgan Nissan Roman Rusinov/Olivier Pla/Julien Canal
27. SMP RacingOreca 03 Nissan Sergey Zlobin/Mika Salo/Anton Ladygin
29. Pegasus RacingMorgan-Nissan Julian Schell/Nicolas Leutwiler/Stephane Raffin
33. OAK Racing – Team AsiaLigier JS P2 HPD David Cheng/Ho-Pin Tung/Adderley Fong
34. Race PerformanceOreca 03 Judd Michel Frey/Franck Mailleux/Jon Lancaster
35. OAK RacingMorgan Nissan Alex Brundle/Jann Mardenborough/Mark Schulzitskiy
37. SMP RacingOreca 03 Nissan Kirill Ladygin/Nicolas Minassian/Maurizio Mediani
38. Signatech AlpineAlpine A450 Nissan Paul-Loup Chatin/Nelson Panciatici/Oliver Webb
39. Jota SportZytek Z11SN Nissan Simon Dolan/Harry Tincknell/Marc Gene
41. Greaves MotorsportZytek Z11SN Nissan Thomas Kimber-Smith/Chris Dyson/Matthew McMurry
42. Caterham RacingZytek Z11SN Nissan Rudolf Nunemann/Alessandro Latif/James Winslow
43. Newblood by Morand RacingMorgan Judd Christian Klien/Gary Hirsch/Romain Brandela
8. Thiriet by TDS Racing Ligier JP S2 Pierre Thiriet/Ludovic Badey/Tristan Gommendy
47. KCMGOreca 03 Nissan Matthew Howson/Richard Bradley/Alexandre Imperatori
48. Murphy PrototypesOreca 03 Nissan Nathanael Berthon/Rodolfo Gonzalez/Karun Chandhok
50. Larbre CompetitionMorgan-Judd Pierre Ragues/Ricky Taylor/Keiko Ihara

LM GTE Pro

51. AF CorseFerrari 458 Italia Gianmaria Bruni/Toni Vilander/Giancarlo Fisichella
52. RAM racingFerrari 458 Italia Matt Griffin/Alvaro Parente/Federico Leo
71. AF CorseFerrari 458 Italia Davide Rigon/James Calado/Olivier Beretta
73. Corvette RacingChevrolet Corvette C7 Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor
74. Corvette RacingChevrolet Corvette C7 Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner/Richard Westbrook
91. Porsche Team MantheyPorsche 911 RSR Patrick Pilet/Jorg Bergmeister/Nick Tandy
92. Porsche Team MantheyPorsche 911 RSR Marco Holzer/Frederic Makiowiecki/Richard Lietz
97. Aston Martin RacingAston Martin Vantage Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke/Bruno Senna
99. Aston Martin RacingAston Martin Vantage Alex Macdowall/Darryl O'Young/Fernando Rees

LM GTE Am

53. Ram RacingFerrari 458 Italia Johnny Mowlem/Mark Patterson/Archie Hamilton
58. Team Sofrev ASPFerrari 458 Italia Fabien Barthez/Anthony Pons/Soheil Ayari
60. AF CorseFerrari 458 Italia Peter Ashley Mann/Lorenzo Case/Raffaele Giammaria
61. AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia Luis Perez Companc/Marco Cioci/Mirko Venturi
62. AF CorseFerrari 458 Italia Yannick Mallegol/Jean-Marc Bachelier/Howard Blank
66. JMW MotorsportFerrari 458 Italia Abdulaziz Turki Alfaisal/Seth Niemann/Spencer Pumpelly
67. IMSA Performance MatmutPorsche 911 GT3 RSR Erik Maris/Jean-Marc Merlin/Eric Helary
70. Team TaisanFerrari 458 Italia James Rossier/Pierre Ehret/Martin Rich
72. SMP RacingFerrari 458 Italia Andrea Bertolini/Victor Shaitar/Aleksey Basov
75. Prospeed CompetitionPorsche 911 GT3 RSR Francois Perrodo/Emmanuel Collard/Mathieu Vaxiviere
77. Dempsey RacingPorsche 911 GT3 RSR Patrick Dempsey/Joe Foster/Patrick Long
Prospeed CompetitionPorsche 911 GT3 RSR Cooper Macneil/Bret Curtis/Jeroen Bleekemolen
81. AF CorseFerrari 458 Italia Stephen Wyatt/Michele Rugolo/Sam Bird
88. Proton CompetitionPorsche 911 GT3 RSR Christian Ried/Klaus Bachler/Khaled Al Qubaisi
90. 8 Star MotorsportsFerrari 458 Italia Frank Montecalvo/Gianluca Roda/Paolo Ruberti
95. Aston Martin RacingAston Martin Vantage Kristian Poulsen/David Heinemeier Hansson/Nicki Thiim
98. Aston Martin RacingAston Martin Vantage Paul Dalla Lana/Pedro Lamy/Christoffer Nygaard

Innovative Technology

0. Nissan Motorsports GlobalNissan Zeod RC Lucas Ordonez/Wolfgang Riep/Satoshi Motoyama

 

[Barbara Charles]

Thank you for starting this thread. I love LeMans, and this year the entire race is being televised on Fox 1 and Fox 2 channels in the States. I cannot wait. I noticed Scott Dixon, the Indy car open wheel driver, is not on here. I do believe he drove last year.

 

[Sassy Colin]

Thank you for starting this thread. I love LeMans, and this year the entire race is being televised on Fox 1 and Fox 2 channels in the States. I cannot wait. I noticed Scott Dixon, the Indy car open wheel driver, is not on here. I do believe he drove last year.

There are only 2 Corvettes to choose from this year.

tbh, there isn't a great deal of cross driving between formulas, you sometimes get the occasional rally driver having a go though.

 

[christy87]

Looks like another audi win as the Toyota has fallen apart, i say this as im about to go to bed and we all know anything can happen.

 

[Sassy Colin]

 

[Barbara Charles]

@Colin: Over the weekend, I remembered Scott Dixon drove in this year's 12 hours of Sebring, not the LeMans Race. Most drivers do not cross drive but off the top of my head, Townsend Bell does endurance racing and also runs the Indy 500. I also believe Tony Kaanan does several different classes.

I'm sick of Audi winning btw. I hope the rumors of Ferrari getting back into the sport are true.

 

[Sassy Colin]

Porsche gained their first WEC win at Interlagos with the 919 but Mark Webber was involved in a big off.

Webber, who was running sixth at the time, lost control of the #20 Porsche at the flat-out Turn 14 left hander that leads into the start-finish straight and backed into the wall.

The accident happened with 26 minutes of the race to go, but the time taken to extract Webber from the car and clear up the wreckage of a shunt that also involved the AF Corse Ferrari driven by Matteo Cressoni meant there was no time for a restart.

Webber, who was able to talk to his team on the radio immediately after the accident, was taken to the circuit medical centre for evaluation.

http://m.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116991/porsche-wins-big-crash-for-webber

Taken to hospital but it looks like he will fine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/motorsport/30271784