24H Le Mans: New opponents for Toyota 🎥
FIRST START LIST The 24 Hours of Le Mans 2021, which has been postponed to August, will see some new cars and teams on the grid. Toyota gets hypercar competition from Alpine and Glickenhaus. These are the 62 teams entered and their cars. To increase its chances of attracting spectators, the organizing Automobile Club de l'Ouest (A.C.O.) has increased its [...]
These are the 62 registered teams and their vehicles.
To increase its chances of attracting spectators, the organizing Automobile Club de l'Ouest (A.C.O.) has postponed its 89th edition of the 24 Heures du Mans from mid-June to August 21-22, 2021. Virtually in the same breath, the promoters of the FIA World Endurance Championship have announced the relocation of the World Endurance Championship opener from Portimão to Spa-Francorchamps (May 1).
Three WEC rounds before Le Mans
The new 8-hour race in Portugal will now take place on the original Le Mans date (June 13). An 8-hour race in Monza (on July 18) will also take place for the first time before the season highlight.
After these three WEC rounds, the balance of power among the new Le Mans hypercars will be known. Toyota, with Sébastien Buemi from Vaud as one of the six drivers at the wheel of the new GR010 Hybrid, remains the team to beat in the WEC and in the Sarthe.
From the Nürburgring to Le Mans
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus is taking on this challenge and has been preparing for weeks with the newly designed SCG 007 hypercar on various race tracks. Glickenhaus was previously known from the 24 Hours of Nürburgring.
As in the Toyota, the engine in the SCG 007 is a 3.5-liter turbo, but without a hybrid and developed by Pipo Moteurs from France.
The latest hot lap video shows how Franck Mailleux (F) broke the absolute lap record in Vallelunga with the SCG 007, achieving 300 km/h top speed.
A Genevan at Alpine
The third competitor in the new LM king class is the Alpine Endurance Team. The French team, which operates independently of the F1 team, will unveil its A480 hypercar, based on the Oreca last used by Rebellion Racing, in Paris on the afternoon of March 16.
The drivers are French-Swiss Nicolas Lapierre (lives in Geneva, but drives with an FFSA license), Brazilian André Negrão (once Nico Müller's teammate in the Renault World Series) and Frenchman Matthieu Vaxivière. Both new WEC teams are definitely serious opponents for the defending champions of recent years.
Scherer and Delétraz in LMP2
The LMP2 class, with 25 uniformly powered cars (Gibson V8s), is also very competitive. Fabio Scherer from Engelberg, who switched from the DTM to the current LMP2 world championship team United Autosports, can hope for victory or at least a podium finish straight away.
The same ambitions are shared by former Formula 2 driver Louis Delétraz with WRT from Belgium, who otherwise concentrate on the European Le Mans Series. Delétraz knows Le Mans from 2020 with Rebellion.
By contrast, the Swiss racing team Realteam Racing, founded by Esteban Garcia in 2019, is still an unknown quantity. With the Frenchmen Loïc Duval and Norman Nato, the team founder, who was previously successful in sailing, has landed two fast professionals.
Jani's look into the future
Neel Jani, who is competing in the LM-GTE Pro class for the first time in the WEC and at Le Mans with Porsche Motorsport, is in a kind of transitional period. His opponents are AF Corse/Ferrari and Corvette Racing. Jani's thoughts are already turning to Porsche's entry into the new LMDh class, which will be on a par with the hypercars.
Swiss like Ferrari
In the LMGTE-Am class, in which at least one non-gold or platinum-rated driver must be present, 24 teams are on the starting list. As reported, Rahel Frey from Solothurn is making her WEC debut in the all-women's team of Iron Lynx Motorsport. The Iron Dames have already achieved two top-9 finishes with their Ferrari in the last two years.
Other Ferraris will be entered by Kessel Racing for three solvent customers and by AF Corse for aviation entrepreneur Thomas Flohr and his trusted professional teammates, among others.
Prov. start list 24H Le Mans 2021
