24h Le Mans
The teams invited to the 85th 24 Hours of Le Mans have been revealing their line-ups over the two weeks since the grid was announced at the Automobile Club de l’Ouest web conference. However, if there is a class where seats are still up for grabs, it’s LM P2!
With 25 cars out of 60, the LM P2 class accounts for almost half of the grid – and no fewer than 75 drivers! All the teams have named their designated driver, as stipulated in the regulations, but many have yet to reveal their full line-up(s).
Vaillante Rebellion, returning to LM P2, is something of an exception as the team selected its drivers some time ago. The Swiss outfit is again running with the number 13 – also the number of the car driven by comic strip hero Michel Vaillant whose name has been adopted by Rebellion. The #13 line-up will be Nelson Piquet Jr, returning to Le Mans for the second consecutive year, Mathias Beche and David Heinemeier Hansson, while the #31 sister Oreca 07 will be handed to Nicolas Prost, ever-present since the start of the LM P1 adventure, Bruno Senna and Julien Canal, three-time class winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Class stalwart TDS Racing has finalised the line-up of the #28 Oreca 07 in which François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard – joint winners of the FIA Endurance Trophy for LM GTE Am Drivers in last year’s World Endurance Championship (WEC) – and Matthieu Vaxivière will share the wheel. TDS Racing will also run G-Drive Racing’s #26 Oreca, with just Roman Rusinov and Pierre Thiriet named so far. Meanwhile, Memo Rojas waits to find out the name of his teammates in G-Drive Racing’s second Oreca (#22) contesting the European Le Mans Series in partnership with DragonSpeed.
Only four other teams have confirmed their driver trios for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, to be held on 17–18 June 2017. Débutant IDEC Sport Racing will be represented by Paul Lafargue and David Zollinger alongside owner/driver Patrice Lafargue, and Italian outfit Cetilar Villorba Corse will rely on the all-Italian line-up of Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto and former Rebellion Racing driver Andrea Bellicchi.
Graff Racing is also playing the domestic driver card for its first entry since 1993. Eric Trouillet, Paul Petit and Enzo Guibbert make up the French trio. Meanwhile, Racing Team Nederland’s Dallara P217 will be driven by two Dutchmen – Jan Lammers, outright winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans back in 1988 with Jaguar and competing here for the 23rd time, and Jumbo supermarket chain owner Frits van Eerd. They will be backed by Rubens Barrichello, holder of the record for most races in Formula One (323), who will be appearing at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the very first time.
The other teams invited to contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LM P2 class have named just one or two drivers for the moment, including last year’s class winner Signatech Alpine, with Nicolas Lapierre, who will be back in 2017. Interestingly, none of the twenty-two trios that competed in LM P2 in the 2016 running of the legendary race has been hired again this time round… as yet.
Photo: Nicolas Prost, pictured here at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day, will again be donning the colours of Rebellion Racing – now Vaillante Rebellion – in 2017.
