Starting from this weekend at Silverstone, Dailysportscar will be providing for readers of the WEC website an early look at the FIA WEC paddock. This will continue for each race meeting.
The WEC cars were going through scrutineering from 08h30 this morning with the No.14 and No.20 Porsche 919 Hybrids next in the queue ahead of the very welcome appearance of the SMP Racing ORECA Nissans.
There was the opportunity to see AF Corse’s pair of brand new LMGTE Pro Ferrari 458 Italias together for the first time too on pit lane as the team prepped the astonishing seven cars that it will field for itself (2 each in LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am) and its customers (8Star Motorsports and SMP Racing).
New addition to AF Corse's line up, Sam Bird, was “waiting to find out where my car actually is!”- the No.81 LMGTE Am Ferrari still behind the shutters in the scrutineering bay. Bird is clearly delighted to be a part of the Italian team's plan for 2014, and is currently aboard the No.81 car for Silverstone and Le Mans only. There’s potential though for the 2013 GP2 Championship runner-up to feature in the future plans for Ferrari’s favoured team.
Prospeed’s LMGTE Am Porsche features a revised livery from the car shown at the Paul Ricard Prologue last month, the white, black and orange working well with the classic Porsche look.
Whilst the shutters were still down at Audi, Toyota was working on both of its TS040 Hybrid LMP1 machines, the No.7 and No.8 cars both in the rather snub-nosed high downforce trim here at Silverstone.
Next door at G-Drive Racing Roman Rusinov was getting a seat fitting in the absolutely immaculate matt black Morgan Nissan: “I’m delighted with the switch to Morgan this year,” said the fast Russian. “This is the same car that finished 1-2 at Le Mans, and took the Championship too last year. The real unknown though is the tyre war, we know that Dunlop has been working hard to improve its tyre for the season but we don’t know yet where we are against the Michelins. That’s a battle to watch for."
Finally there was time to pop in for a congratulatory moment with Bart Hayden at Rebellion Racing. The team will race its Lola Toyotas this weekend but the plan is for both of their brand new Rebellion R-One LMP1s to be at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium for Round 2 of the WEC. The first car shook down for the first time yesterday at Paul Ricard; it looks good and, having seen film of the car, it sounds good too. Beware factory teams: the Privateers are coming!
Graham Goodwin
