Le Mans Cup Barcelona: Wednesday Paddock Notes
Following yesterday’s Michelin Le Mans Cup pre-season test day, the Barcelona paddock is now chock-a-block with teams and drivers as the ELMS track action gets underway, with the 42 ELMS cars matched by an identical grid total in the Michelin Le Mans Cup. The paddock is set to grow even further after today’s Le Mans Cup rest day too, with the arrival of the Ligier European Series tomorrow.
The fastest man during Le Mans Cup testing was Scott Andrews, who is competing with Gerald Kraut (pictured together below) at United Autosports this year and told DSC that he was encouraged by the team’s performance ahead of the opener.
“I’m super happy to be back with United Autosports,” he said, “getting to see everyone and working with the team who I haven’t seen in a couple of years.
“I’m enjoying being back in Europe and racing in such a competitive championship too. Since I was here last, United Autosports have put in a lot of hard work to developing their LMP3 cars and it’s clearly paid off. I was super happy with how the car rolled out yesterday, really impressed with everyone – and it showed in our lap times.
“I much prefer driving this layout at Barcelona – the new last sector without the chicane is super fast and committed. Driving-wise it’s much better, racing-wise it might be difficult to follow with the aero wash behind cars but we’ll see!”
Visits to the LMC paddock throughout the past two days found plenty of interest, with plenty of new machinery adding to the car count, including a pair of brand-new Ferrari 296 GT3s in the AF Corse awning.
Even these two though are not as new as the Racing Spirit of LeMan Aston Martin which was delivered to the team just the day before it arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya. After a thorough check over from the team the car ran in the afternoon Prologue session.
Alongside the Vantage in the awning was the defending championship-winning team’s LMP3 Ligier. It is running one apiece in 2023 in ELMS and MLMC. Its Le Mans Cup car features a new gold-based livery.
Steller Motorsport makes its international GT3 debut in the series this year and the team was fettling the Audi R8 LMS EVO2 this morning after its Prologue debut.
Iron Lynx (featured) returns to the Michelin Le Mans Cup this season with a single Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 for Hiroshi Hamaguchi, the Japanese racer back to the series after contesting the first two seasons of the Le Mans Cup in McLaren and Lamborghini machinery.
He’s joined here by last-minute signing Vincent Abril – late enough that the Monegasque racer was wearing Andrea Caldarelli’s race suit for the Prologue yesterday!
A full interview with Abril will feature on DSC soon. For now though, here’s a snippet of what he had to say about his drive with Iron Lynx this weekend:
“Guy (Smith) and Andy (Meyrick, who both manage Abril) were close with Iron Lynx, and they mentioned to me that they needed a driver for this championship. So to keep race fit and compete with a top team is always good,” Abril told DSC when asked how his drive with the Italian Lamborghini customer team came about.
“Building a relationship with a top team like Iron Lynx is more of a priority for me right now than competing in a mid-pack World Challenge programme. I have had many interesting offers in recent weeks, but have had to be selective in order to achieve my personal goals for this year.”
The entry also includes one new 992-Spec Porsche 911 GT3 R, for #18 Team Parker Racing, the UK-based Porsche specialists having had a taster with a one-off at Portimao last season. It is also running an previous-gen Porsche, the #64.
As is the #86 for HCR (High Class Racing) with CaffeineSix. Anders Fjordbach is paired with with Tim Creswick, who steps up to GT3 from the Porsche Sprint Challenge in the UK.
The Porsche shares the awning with the returning Team Thor LMP3 effort, also supported by High Class Racing, Audunn Gudmundsson paired this year with ex-champion Colin Noble for 2023.
Next, a returning name, and livery! Murphy Prototypes is fielding the #48 Duqueine LMP3 for Briton Adrian Watt and Czech racer Dan Skočdopole. The car, an ex-Nielsen Racing D08, is immaculately presented in a colour scheme that will be immediately familiar to fans of the LMS from almost a decade ago!
The second pic below is the Le Mans 24 Hours team shot featuring a very young Brendon Hartley, current 7TSix team manager Jody First and the evergreen Warren Hughes in the driver line-up and current RLR MSport team Principal Nick Reynolds on the technical team.
Finally, for now, Inter Europol, which is making its first appearance in the Le Mans Cup in 2023 and starts with a bang.
Team manager, and multi-ELMS LMP3 race winner Martin Hippe is overseeing a trio of Ligier JS P320s one of which is the #14 for Andres Latorre and Daniel Ali, which features the first-ever non-Inter-Europol livery on a car run by the team in LMP2 or LMP3!
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