The 24 Hours of Le Mans, the crown jewel of endurance racing, enjoys a special status within the FIA World Endurance Championship. Double points will be awarded for this third round of the FIA WEC, so the event on 22-23 June is a particularly important one for the drivers, and the full entry list is published today by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest(HERE).
For the teams, entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours takes place in two stages: they had up until 16th January to send in their entry form for the race and nominate one driver. By 15th May at the latest they had to inform the Automobile Club de l'Ouest of the driver line-ups, consisting of three names per entry.
On the list published today there are only 165 names for 56 cars out of 168 possible places, with FIA WEC LMGTE Pro Champions Ferrari being the only significant championship entry to not yet announce the name of the driver who will back up Fisichella and Bruni in the no. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia. The new technology, Garage 56, GreenGT entry will confirm the two who will team up with Christian Pescatori before the end of May.
This fantastic list contains 10 former outright winners who will take the start in 2013, the oldest being Christophe Bouchut (victorious in 1993 in a Peugeot 905), who will drive one of the two LMP2 Lotuses. Also present will be the most recent winners (2011/2012), Tréluyer-Fässler-Lotterer, who will be aiming for a hat trick in their No.1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro.
In addition to the three Audi drivers all the other 2012 winners are back to defend their crowns, whether together or separately. The victorious LMP2 winning crew has been broken up due to the withdrawal of Starworks Motorsport's entry; Tom Kimber-Smith is in the no. 41 Zytek-Nissan entered by Greaves Motorsport, Ryan Dalziel will be racing in LMGTE Pro in one of the works Vipers, and Enzo Potolicchio will be at the wheel of the no. 81 8Star Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia.
Victorious in LMGTE Pro at Le Mans last year, Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni will once again be partnered in the works no. 51 F458 Italia but their team mate from last year, Toni Vilander, will be driving the no. 71 AF Corse entry with his FIA WEC team mate Kamui Kobayashi and Monegasque driver Olivier Beretta. The third driver who will back up Fisichella and Bruni will be announced shortly.
In LMGTE Am, Patrick Bornhauser and Julien Canal, winners in 2011 and 2012, will again team up in the no. 50 Larbre Competition Corvette and will have American Ricky Taylor as team-mate, rather than Pedro Lamy who has returned to Aston Martin as a works driver.
The influx of ex-F1 aces to Le Mans continues! Last year Rebellion Racing's Nick Heidfeld returned for the first time since his 1999 debut, while Sébastien Buemi and Karun Chandhok had their first taste of Le Mans - both are back this year, the latter in the no.48 LMP2 Murphy Prototypes Oreca Nissan. Bruno Senna (Aston Martin Racing), who has had such a great start to the FIA WEC 2013 season, will return to tackle the daunting Sarthe circuit again while Kamui Kobayashi (AF Corse Ferrari) will be making his Le Mans debut.
This year there will be two woman drivers on the grid: Keiko Ihara from Japan in the Lola LMP2 entered by the Gulf Racing Middle East team that competed in the event in 2012, and the European Le Mans Series' Imola podium winner, Natacha Gachnang, (Morand Racing's no. 43 Morgan Judd) from Switzerland who raced in the 24 Hours in 2010 (Ford GT). For Natacha Le Mans is a family affair as her cousin Sébastien Buemi will be one of the works Toyota drivers, and their grandfather, Georges Gachnang, raced in the event in 1960.
And, as always, Le Mans has its fair share of talented gentlemen drivers like Patrick Bornhauser, Tracy Krohn and Jacques Nicolet who do battle all year round in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Then there is American actor Patrick Dempsey, entered in the American Le Mans Series; he will share a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with fellow-countrymen Joe Foster and Michael Avenatti.
The vast majority of entrants will take part in the one official test day on Sunday 9th June, the dress rehearsal for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For new cars and for teams and drivers that have never raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours before, or who are on the list of those who haven't taken part in official practice since the 2008 race, the test day is mandatory.
Following the test, teams and drivers will all through scrutineering and administrative checks on 16-17th June, then official qualifying practice on 19-20th June before the high point of the week - the start of the 90th anniversary 24 Hours of Le Mans on Saturday 22nd June at 15h00.
CLICK HERE to see the 2013 entry list
Fiona Miller (from ACO press release)
Photo: SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT (TOWCESTER, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, UK), 6 HOURS OF SILVERSTONE, 12TH APRIL 2013. The FIA WEC drivers will make up more than half the grid for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
