Michelin Le Mans Cup

33 LMC cars at Monza

Friday July 2nd, 2021Friday July 2nd, 2021 Jens Jensen

Michelin Le Mans Cup has 33 cars entered for the third round of the 2021 season, which will run at Monza in Italy. There are quite a few changes with regards to not only competing cars, but also competing drivers, compared to the previous round at Paul Ricard in early June. GT3 Championship leader Rino Mastronardi in Iron Lynx Ferrari #8 won’t be racing at Monza, but will be replaced by Gabriele Lancieri. Lancieri will share the car with Paolo Ruberti, who was replaced by Logan Sargeant in France. The…

Iron Dames version 1.0 back together

Tuesday April 13th, 2021Tuesday April 13th, 2021 Jens Jensen

After a lot of switching forth and back, the original Iron Dames line-up is back together. The team, which will be competing in both the European Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship this year, has had a lot of driver swaps over the last couple of weeks. The original plan was for the three drivers, who have raced in the ELMS together, Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey, and Manuela Gostner, to move into FIA WEC as a pairing. Frey and Gostner would also continue in the European Le…

Reserve list for LM24 2021 revealed

Saturday April 3rd, 2021Saturday April 3rd, 2021 Jens Jensen

Automobile Club de l’Ouest has revealed the reserve list for the 2021 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are a total of four teams on that list. The first one is AF Corse with an extra Ferrari 488 GTE Evo for the GTE Am category. The car is already fully crewed by Christophe Ulrich, Simon Mann and Sergei Sirotkin, with car number 62. The second reserve is an extra Algarve Pro Racing car for the LMP2 category. Mark Patterson and Naveen Rao are the named drivers for…

More colours and more drivers presented

Thursday April 1st, 2021 Jens Jensen

With only one and a half weeks until the start of the pre-season testing, there are more and more announcements coming from the European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup teams. Inter Europol Competition has announced Belgian driver Ugo de Wilde for the ELMS. The 18-year-old racing driver has a single-seater background, having run in French F4 amongst other series. His big goal is to participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023, and he is hoping to find the budget to do the Road To Le…

Iron Dames with significant changes

Wednesday March 31st, 2021 Jens Jensen

The Iron Dames programme will have quite a different look, compared to what was previously announced for the 2021 season. The outfit, which is a part of the Iron Lynx team, did reveal their driver line-up just over a month ago, but has opted to shake things up a bit shortly before the season start. The original plan was to have the previous ELMS driving team of Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Manuela Gostner move up to FIA World Endurance Championship for the 2021 season, but that is going to…

Le Mans 2021 entry list revealed

Tuesday March 9th, 2021Thursday March 11th, 2021 Jens Jensen

Automobile Club de l’Ouest has revealed the entry list for the 89th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will run on 21-22 August 2021. The list is once again 62 cars, with exactly half the field being LMP cars, and the other half being GTE cars. The Hypercar category has no surprises. There are the five cars, which have entered the FIA World Endurance Championship, with two cars from Toyota Gazoo Racing, two from Glickenhaus Racing, and a single from Alpine Elf Matmut. The LMP2 category is…

31 cars enter LMC 2021

Friday March 5th, 2021Friday March 5th, 2021 Jens Jensen

31 cars are entered for the Michelin Le Mans Cup 2021. That is an expansion of two cars compared to the 2020 season, with several changes to the field. There have been some cars dropping out of the GT3 category, but Pzoberer Zürichsee by TFT returns with their Porsche, in addition to a single AF Corse Ferrari, and two Iron Lynx Ferrari cars. Rinaldi Racing will bring one of their GT3 Ferrari’s, just like they ran in the Asian Le Mans Series. 10Q Racing Team is a brand new team…

Le Mans moves to August, schedule change in ELMS and LMC

Thursday March 4th, 2021Thursday March 4th, 2021 Jens Jensen

Automobile Club de l’Ouest has chosen to push the 2021 edition of the 24 hours car race back to August. That is due to the COVID-19 situation, which still creates issues around the world. The race has been moved to 21-22 August, since the ACO hopes to be able to let in spectators by then. There is however no news regarding the number of fans – if it’s the full capacity of 250.000+ or if it will be a reduced edition, like 2020 was thought to be with certain zones…

New innovation in LMC

Thursday February 18th, 2021 Jens Jensen

Michelin Le Mans Cup will try out something new for the 2021 season, with another kind of adjustment between drivers. The changes are related to the Bronze drivers, with a Bronze+ designation. The LMC rules state that there needs to be a Bronze rated driver in each car, no matter if it’s LMP3 or GT3. The Bronze rating can consist of both older drivers, or the young guns, who haven’t previously raced. The mix of older drivers, and the very young ones, who are judged not to be at the…

Rule changes in FIA WEC, ELMS and LMC for 2021

Saturday December 5th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup will introduce a few changes to their regulations in 2021. Some of the things are common, while others are more championship specific. The perhaps most important change is that the LMP2 category will have to race on Goodyear tires. ACO has chosen a single tire supplier, to keep the costs down. There has been a tire war between Goodyear/Dunlop and Michelin so far, with Michelin having the upper hand for some time, but with Goodyear finishing…

Few, but important driver category changes

Thursday October 22nd, 2020 Jens Jensen

The FIA Driver Categorisation Committee has announced the changes for the sportcar drivers in 2021. The categorisation consists of 4 categories, from Bronze in the bottom, for the drivers with limited experience in a racing car, or if they have hit a certain age, via Silver ranking for amateurs or young talents, to Gold and Platinum, which more or less is the same – i.e. a professional driver, or drivers that show the same pace as professional drivers. The majority of the just shy of 4000 drivers on the list,…

ELMS 2021 schedule announced

Thursday October 8th, 2020Thursday October 8th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The European Le Mans Series have announced their 2021 race schedule, as they expect it to be, with pending potential COVID-19 changes. The series is back up to six weekends once again, with a few changes, compared to the previous seasons. The season will start a bit later, with testing on 12-13 April, followed by the race at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya the following weekend. It’s a return of Red Bull Ring a month later, which hasn’t been on the schedule since 2018, ahead of a two-month Le Mans break. There…

RLR MSport announces Le Mans drivers

Monday September 7th, 2020 Jens Jensen

RLR MSport has announced their two drivers for the Road To Le Mans race, which runs as a support race to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next week. Canadian James Dayson will be joined by Danish youngster Malthe Jakobsen. They are paired up in the European Le Mans Series too, but the Le Mans call came very late for Jakobsen. He didn’t expect to go, only a week ago, but after the good pace by him in the ELMS this year, the team was very keen on getting him…

Qualifying for Le Castellet 120 – updated

Saturday August 29th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The qualifying for the third round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup 2020 was run on a dry, but overcast Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France. There were dark clouds hanging in the area, and the weather forecast actually said rain during qualifying, but at least it started out dry. First up was the 6 GT3 cars. The drivers once again had to be aware of Track Limits, which not all had listened to. At least there were several laptimes deleted. Iron Lynx Ferrari #8 started out being…

Driver changes at Iron Lynx

Saturday August 29th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

Iron Lynx has changed their driver line-up slightly this weekend. Neither Giacomo nor Andrea Piccini is present at the circuit due to family reasons, so the team has had to find two replacements for the Michelin Le Mans Cup, and a single for the European Le Mans Series. Ferrari works driver Nicklas Nielsen had been called in for the ELMS entry #60, which he will share with Claudio Schiavoni and Sergio Pianezzola. Andrea is the regular driver in that car. Matt Griffin was the replacement in the Michelin Le Mans…

Le Mans entry list updated again

Tuesday August 25th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The entry list for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans has been updated once again, and sadly with a few teams dropping out. The current list has 59 entrants. Thunderhead Carlin Racing has dropped out of the LMP2 entry list. The team was originally planned to run both the European Le Mans Series and the 24 hours race, but their ELMS programme has been put on pause, and the team hasn’t run any of the first two rounds and isn’t on the entry list for the third round this…

Le Mans 2020 behind closed doors

Monday August 10th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The 24 Hours of Le Mans for cars, will be run behind closed doors in 2020. Automobile Club de l’Ouest has announced that they have made the decision together with the local health reponsibilities. ACO was hoping to be able to limit the amount of spectators to groups of 5000 persons, but not even that is possible, due to too much uncertainty. All people with tickets for the race will be contacted by either their travel company or by the ACO themselves, depending on where they have bought the tickets.…

Catalunya replaced by Paul Ricard

Thursday August 6th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The European Le Mans Series has updated their racing schedule for 2020, with one of the races switching country. This is all due to the COVID-19 situation, that the race planned for Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya later this month, has been moved to the Paul Ricard track in France. There is too much uncertainty about Barcelona currently, with a lot of COVID cases in the area, so LMEM, the organizers behind the European Le Mans Series, would rather decide the change now, instead of the week leading up to it –…

Dominant Pole Positions in LMC

Saturday July 18th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

The qualifying for the Michelin Le Mans Cup was run on a slightly overcast, but dry and warm track. First up was the eight GT3 cars, where IDEC Sport #17 was finally repaired, after their Mercedes-AMG GT3 had a shunt earlier in the week. That meant that they couldn’t participate in the Friday practice sessions. The rules for the qualifying is that the Bronze drivers will qualify the cars. Iron Lynx Ferrari #8 put down an impressive time, that the competition had to chase. Kessel Racing Ferrari #74 were the…

Michelin Le Mans Cup test day

Friday July 17th, 2020Saturday December 26th, 2020 Jens Jensen

Michelin Le Mans Cup held their pre-season test day Thursday, ahead of the season start on Saturday afternoon. There was a practice session in the morning, and one in the afternoon for the 25 participating teams this weekend. United Autosports #23 with John Schauerman and Wayne Boyd was the fastest in LMP3 during the first session, ahead of Cool Racing #69 with Maurice Smith sat Ben Barnicoat and Nielsen Racing #10 with Rob Hodes and Garett Grist. In the GT3 category was Kessel Racing Ferrari #74 with Michael Broniszewski and…