Tincknell delighted to have the band back together

Despite missing out on victory in the first round of the European Le Mans Series by just 0.37 seconds, Jota Sport driver Harry Tincknell spoke of his delight to be back competing for the championship which so narrowly evaded him last season.

After signing for Nissan’s all-new LMP1 outfit, it looked certain that the partnership which yielded a heroic victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours would be broken up, but due to a set of unforeseen circumstances, Tincknell found himself unexpectedly drafted back into the team with whom he impressed so greatly last season.

With Nissan pulling out of the first two rounds of the World Endurance Championship and Nick Yelloly parting company with Jota before the first round, “the stars aligned” for Tincknell to fill the breach alongside Filipe Albuquerque and Simon Dolan.

Tincknell got Jota's ELMS title challenge off to a
strong start with second at Silverstone (Jota Sport)

“It was the right decision from Nissan not to come to the first couple of races, and we’ve learned so much from the testing that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. It was sad but then at the same time there was a problem with one of the drivers at Jota, so the stars aligned at almost exactly the right time,” Tincknell said. “I’m massively excited to be back; I didn’t think it would quite work out in these circumstances, but we’re here now.

“We’re in good shape; we know the car is very solid and has definitely proven to be slightly better than last year’s,” he added. “Obviously we had a lot of success last year; if we hadn’t had the shunt here last year, I think we would have won the championship very easily in the end. It just shows that even though it’s only a short sprint in terms of five races, they all count and you do have to look at the long term. So we’re back to finish the job this year and to have the same driver line-up is fantastic.”

With a year’s experience under his belt, a victory at Le Mans and a manufacturer drive to boot, you could be forgiven for thinking that Tincknell would approach this year slightly differently, but the man himself says that’s not necessarily the case.

“Last year coming into this weekend I’d never done a sportscar weekend before and I’d never worked with the team on a race weekend before, so there were definitely a lot of unknowns. Now I’m obviously more experienced, but I’ve still only done one season in sportscars; you look at someone like Oli Pla, he’s got around eight or nine seasons under his belt, so by the time I get to that stage I’ll know a hell of a lot more than I do now,” he says. “I’m pushing myself all the time to find the limit and keep improving myself and although I’m more experienced, I’m definitely not he finished article!” 

Audi win enthalling Silverstone Six Hours

The no. 7 Audi crew of Benoit Treluyer, Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler took a thrilling victory in the first round of the World Endurance Championship, as the Six Hours of Silverstone built to a nail-biting crescendo.

After completing a record-breaking 201 laps, the margin of victory was a mere 4.6 seconds as the charging Neel Jani – who shared with Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb – narrowly ran out of laps to deprive Audi of a win which had seemed a near certainty with twenty minutes remaining. However, a stop-go penalty handed to Fassler for exceeding the track limits at Club while passing a GTE Aston Martin threatened to undo all the team’s good work; in particular a stellar treble stint from Lotterer, which saw him first pass and then pull away from Anthony Davidson’s Toyota and the sole remaining Porsche of Dumas.

Marcel Fassler held on despite a late penalty to give Audi
their first WEC win of the year. (Adrenal Media)

But despite also having to stop for a quick splash of fuel to make it to the finish, Fassler still had enough in hand to emerge from his penalty in front of Jani, with reigning World Champions Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima completing the podium to make it three different manufacturers in as many positions.

Although the Toyota finished only 14 seconds behind the winners, the Japanese marque had never looked likely to challenge to outright victory, which from the word go looked likely to come down to a showdown between Porsche and Audi. Mark Webber led away from pole position and was able to build a comfortable gap over team-mate Dumas in the opening stint, only for a drivetrain failure ninety minutes into the race to put pay to his challenge, before Brendan Hartley and Timo Bernhard could even get behind the wheel.

“It was over pretty quick, I only felt it one lap before,” said a rueful Webber. “But up until then we had a nice lead and it was going well, so it’s a shame for the team. All of us on the no. 17 car had a great build up to the weekend and that was displayed in the start of the race. We have a lot of good potential here, but when you don’t finish obviously there’s no result, so it’s tough.”

That allowed Dumas through to lead, but it was not long before he was coming under severe pressure from Treluyer, who had earlier made an opportunistic pass on Buemi following a period of full-course yellow. The battle was briefly interrupted by pitstops and driver changes, but thereafter the race truly came to life, as Jani and Fassler repeatedly swapped positions, the Audi’s superior downforce enabling it to carry more speed through the corners only for the Porsche time and again to power back through on the straights, much to Fassler’s frustration. However, both men kept it clean, and afterwards praised each other’s fairness.

The sight of Jani and Fassler locked in combat was a regular one (Adrenal Media)

“I must say this was one of the best fights I’ve had in my whole career,” said the victorious Fassler. “It was pretty fair from Neel who gave me space, but it was a bit annoying to be passed all the time on the straights! It was a really exiting race; and what we’ve shown today was a great sportscar race.”

“I enjoyed it, especially when you can trust each other to go side-by-side without touching,” added Jani. “It was a very fair fight, obviously I couldn’t avoid a smile in a straight-line. We’ve had a lot of racing together in go-karts, we just had another one here except it was a bit quicker and in bigger cars. It was like a six-hour sprint race!”

The race took on a different dimension altogether during Lotterer’s stint, the German lapping with metronomic consistency as mistakes began to creep in among the chasing pack. Lieb was fortunate to survive a huge moment at Stowe as he made an adjustment on his steering wheel, banging both elbows in the process as he managed just to pull the car back from the brink of oblivion, while both Mike Conway in the no. 2 Toyota and Oliver Jarvis in the no. 8 Audi suffered contact with GT cars that required attention on pitlane.  

Such was the gap Lotterer was able to pull out on the rest that even the late penalty call would not put pay to Audi’s perfect start to the season, although Toyota, forced into double-stinting to remain in contention, will be optimistic of a return to form at Spa, where they have tasted success in the past.

“I think it’s fair to say that the competition have definitely caught up, maybe overtaken,” admitted Davidson. “Hopefully when we get to some circuits where tyre-wear is a bit more critical than it is here at Silverstone then we can be in a position where we were last year, because our car is a bit kinder on tyres than most. This was never really a strong circuit for us, we’ve always seemed to struggle here and last year it’s fair to say we wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for the changeable conditions. [If someone had offered us], I think we would have taken third, definitely.”

Toyota struggled at Silverstone, but were content with third (Adrenal Media)

LMP2 was a more straight-forward affair, as G-Drive Racing dominated from the first hour to record a 1-2 finish. Nick Tandy made a terrific start from third on the grid to usurp both front-row men and lead the opening lap on his first start for KCMG, but simply couldn’t live with the pace of the Ligiers on the first outing for the new Oreca 05 and soon dropped back to third, before radiator problems prompted a lengthy stay in the pits, yielding 19^th overall and fourth in class.

That left the way clear for Sam Bird, Roman Rusinov and Julien Canal to romp to a comfortable victory, while polesitters Pipo Derani, Gustavo Yacaman and Ricardo Gonzalez collected second.

“The race went according to plan for G-Drive. We knew that we had a very good package here at Silverstone and it went very, very well. The pitstops were very good, my team-mates drove exceptionally, I did my part and the result came,” said Bird. “There’s going to be tracks where our car isn’t suited to the circuit we’re at, so it’s important that when the car is suited to a given circuit that we make the most of it and that’s happened today, so I’m really delighted.”

“In the end it was a race for them; Sam did a really good job and he pulled a gap from the first two stints that we could never get back,” added Yacaman. “But I’m really happy with all my team-mates, we did a really good job considering we are like the rookies in this and we don’t have the experience Sam has got.  We have good confidence now, we know the car is strong and we’re all strong, so if we make no mistakes and keep running the way we’re running, then we can fight for the championship in the long run.”

Bruni and Vilander carried on where they left off
last season with a win in GTE-Pro (Adrenal Media)

With others hit by setbacks – Paul Loup Chatin’s Signatech Alpine lost a wheel at Copse and crashed, while Danny Watts spun the troublesome new Strakka Dome at the very first corner and had to recover from dead last – Extreme Speed Motorsports collected the final place on the rostrum to give Ryan Dalziel an ideal 33^rd birthday and a perfect swansong for the team’s venerable ARX 03b. Or so they thought. Late on Sunday evening, ESM were excluded from the results after failing a post-race technical inspection, which meant Strakka inherited an unlikely podium for their efforts.

In GTE-Pro, damper problems for Patrick Pilet and Fred Makowiecki allowed 2014 champions Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and AF Corse to carry on where they left off. However, Bruni was made to work hard for the win by none other than by team-mates James Calado and Davide Rigon, although they were eventually jumped for second in the final pitstops by the no. 91 Porsche Michael Christiansen and Richard Leitz. Polesitters Nicki Thiim, Christoffer Nygaard and sportscar debutant Marco Sorensen were a disappointed fourth in the no. 95 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, ahead of home hero Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke in fifth, after both were caught out by the early full-course yellow.

However, Aston Martin at least had a victory in GTE-Am to celebrate courtesy of the no. 98 driven by Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana and Mathias Lauda, despite having to pit for fuel with only a few minutes remaining. Ferraris rounded out the podium, with Rui Aguas, Emmanuel Collard and Francois Perrodo finishing a fine second for AF Corse, with Andrea Bertolini, Aleksey Basov, Victor Shaytar third for SMP. 

WEC Silverstone Qualifying Notes

Porsche locked out the front-row in qualifying for the first round of the World Endurance Championship at Silverstone, setting the only lap under 1 minute 40s in the process, but the chasing pack behind were not disheartened.

Third-placed Loic Duval said Porsche’s domination over a single-lap was “no surprise”, but was confident that Audi would be a match for them over a race distance.

“In a way it was expected,” he said. “Second would have been possible, but Porsche always have an advantage in qualifying over a single lap, so it was not a big surprise. We did confirm that we have improved a lot since last year; it’s good to have a good performance in a test, but to reach that goal in the races is really important, so we are happy with the way it goes for the moment. 

"I still believe that our pace in the race should be a little bit better, but [Porsche] have made some improvements with their car, so it will not be as bad as last year for them. It will be a tough fight tomorrow.”

Loic Duval starts third for Audi (Audi Sport)

Starting fourth was Kazuki Nakajima, now in the no. 1 Toyota alongside last year’s champions Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi. 

"Last year we were on pole, but still it was clear Audi had the best car at Silverstone and it seems the same from yesterday's long run [in practice],” said the Japanese. “With the Porsche, everyone knew they would be very strong in qualifying and they have a better car than last year, so it's not going to be easy to predict. We are not sure where we could be; at Paul Ricard, we were nearly three seconds off and yesterday we were 1.7 seconds off, but it was actually similar to what we expected or maybe better.

“But we are in the fight with the other manufacturers which is a very good sign because Silverstone is not a very good circuit for us. If we can be in the fight here, we can be better at the other tracks. I'm happy with the result.”

Eighth on the grid and second in LMP2 alongside his G-Drive Racing team-mates, Sam Bird was eager to perform in front of his home crowd and on a circuit he knows well.

"The G-Drive Ligier is obviously very competitive, so we’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “Our team-mates are right up there as well, but it's a long race, anything can happen, we need to make sure we don't make any mistakes.

"It's a track I've won at in GP2, I feel good here, it's nice to have the home support as well, so I’m feeling good."

KCMG's qualifying was compromised by a wet third practice (Adrenal Media)

One place back in third, KCMG’s Nick Tandy was left to rue a wet third practice session which compromised their setup. But on the new Oreca 05’s first outing, there is plenty more to be extracted from the car.

"The trouble we've got this weekend is it's only the third time the car has run on a circuit,” said Tandy. “After yesterday, we took a big swing in the hope that we could get a run in free practise three today, but of course it rained. So we went into qualifying and the car wasn't ideal, on a single lap pace we were still quite a way behind the Ligiers, which was surprising. We're not as happy as we wanted."

Extreme Speed Motorsports endured a frustrating off-season attempting to prepare its new HPD, but with the homologation deadline looming, decided to postpone until next season. Before taking delivery of a pair of Ligiers in time for Spa, the American outfit have brought their old ARX-03bs back from retirement, with Ryan Dalziel qualifying mid-pack in 12th.

“We wish we’d had our new cars here but we’re excited to have the Ligier coming for sure,” said the Scot, racing at Silverstone for the first time since 2012. “We just ran out of time on the HPD; things were getting late and we knew we’d have to homologate the car and it wasn’t what either we wanted or Honda wanted. We knew the old car was still going to be a better option for Sebring and here, so we chose to go back to the old girls. It’s disappointing to have to give up a race in performance; we know that on a high-downforce track like this, we’re at least a second and a half to two seconds off what the Ligiers and Orecas were going to be, but we knew that would be the case when we made the decision.

ESM were targeting a quiet run on the ARX-03b's swansong (John Dagys)

“For us, this race is purely about survival and points; we don’t want to damage the cars because we’re very low on spares as they stopped production in September of last year. The cars are quite fragile, but if we stay out of trouble we can potentially get a podium and if not we’ll pick up as many points as we can.”

Strakka were down in 13^th on their return to the WEC in the LMP2 class, but Danny Watts was fully prepared to sacrifice one lap speed in return for a good race setup. 

"We're just not 100 per cent happy with the balance at the minute, but I honestly think our race pace is going to be much better than over a single lap,” he said. “Trying to keep three drivers happy is always difficult, but luckily the three of us have worked together long enough to know exactly what we want from the car, and our whole programme up to now has been working on a race setup. We haven't really worried about qualifying because in the grand scheme of things it's not important. So we're just trying to nail down a balance that is consistent, easy to drive over a double stint.

Greaves win bad-tempered European Le Mans Series opener at Silverstone

Greaves Motorsport took victory in a thrilling season opener that was overshadowed by a controversial move on the TDS Racing Oreca which resulted in contact. James Newbold reports.

What a shame that it all came down to this. The first round of the 2015 European Le Mans Series was a true classic, but will sadly be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

The mood in the press conference afterward ought to have been celebratory. Gibson turned in a remarkable 1-2 finish, while TDS made the podium on the first time out with their new Oreca 05. But instead, tension bristled as Tristan Gommendy described from his perspective the contact at Aintree corner with Greaves driver Jon Lancaster, which removed TDS from victory contention with a mere five minutes of the race remaining, demoting the French squad to an unhappy third.

Gommendy did not mince his words. 

“From my side it was pretty simple; it took place where it was impossible to overtake,” said Gommendy, who shared with Pierre Thiriet and Ludovic Badey. “It was an interesting move. If we have the same spirit in the Le Mans race, I think we can have a big trouble, and injuries to drivers. It’s not in the spirit of endurance. I was once young like him, but never did I do that. If you are a good driver, you don’t have to do that. You don’t need to do that. It’s a shame for him.”

Greaves won, but TDS were furious (ELMS)

Despite the protests of TDS and much to the relief of the Greaves squad, no further action was taken after the race. But it was a sour way to end a breathtaking day’s racing.

After a solid double stint from Gary Hirsch, Bjorn Wirdheim had built up a healthy gap for Greaves over Jota’s Simon Dolan during the race’s middle stint, only for the arrival of the safety car with just over an hour to go for a collision between two GTC cars to seemingly scupper his plans. That brought Gommendy back into play in the TDS Oreca, and after Wirdheim’s tyres passed their best, Gommendy was able to build a commanding lead. But if he thought a 14-second gap was enough, then he had reckoned without Lancaster, who had earlier qualified on pole and was driving the race of his life.

After taking over from Wirdheim, Lancaster fought a stoic rear-guard action against surprise Jota returnee Harry Tincknell for much of his stint. Although the newly-signed Nissan LMP1 driver managed to capitalise on traffic to briefly get past, Lancaster refused to let him out of his sights and managed to execute an audacious pass into the Maggots-Becketts complex, causing an irate Tincknell to spin in avoidance. 

With much fresher tyres, Lancaster was then able to reign in the gap to Gommendy and with five minutes to go, the stage was set for a grandstand finale. It didn’t disappoint. Traffic once again played its part, delaying Gommendy enough through the Loop to allow Lancaster to get a run to his inside through Aintree. The two made the slightest of touches at the apex, but it was enough to unsettle the Oreca, which slid across the track and narrowly avoided making contact with the barriers.

TDS ran promisingly on the Oreca's first outing (ELMS)

“He had a really bad exit with a lot of wheelspin, and I had good traction, we still had a little bit of tyre left,” said the Yorkshireman. “There was a small gap and I got halfway down the inside, he left a little bit of room but not quite enough; I hit the inside kerb and we’ve just glanced him on the way out, but his tyres were that far gone that any sort of contact was going to send him into a bit of a spin. It’s unfortunate, but I think it was a racing incident at the end of the day.”

But it still wasn’t over; with a charging Tincknell looming ever-larger in his mirrors, Lancaster had to endure an anxious final few laps – not helped by a near-miss with Dan Brown’s GTC Lamborghini at Copse – but a final lap showdown was not to be, the two separated at the line by just 0.370s.

“It was more stressful out of the car than in the car!” said a plainly relieved Hirsch.

Jota were plainly disappointed with second after coming so close to victory, but with the painful memories of 2014 still fresh, they could at least be glad of putting some solid points on the board.

“Okay we would have liked to be first, and on balance we had the pace to be first, but what’s pleasing to us is the chassis; it’s a few years old now and you’re always expecting one of the shiny new coupes to come in and be a couple of seconds per lap quicker, but they’re fundamentally not,” said Jota’s Simon Dolan. “On balance it’s not a bad result, but perhaps not the one we felt we deserved, although I’m sure all the other guys will say the same!”

Jota fell narrowly short again (ELMS)

With electrical problems accounting for Murphy Prototypes, who had been set for a strong finish to the race with Nathaniel Berthon at the wheel, two series debutants rounded out the top five, with Krohn Racing’s Ozz Negri, Tracy Krohn and Niclas Jonsson heading home Eurasia Motorsport duo of Pu Jun Jin and Nick de Bruijn in fourth and fifth.

Little had been expected of the five-car LMP3 entry, with Lanan Racing only receiving their brand-new car on Thursday night, but all five made it to the finish, with Charlie Robertson and Sir Chris Hoy taking the spoils for Team LNT ahead of team-mates Michael Simpson and Gaetan Paletou. After being sent to the back of the grid for a technical infringement, Ginetta GT4 Supercup-graduate Robertson was fortunate to emerge from turn one unscathed as Jonathan Coleman and Kirill Ladygin spun in front of the pack, but thereafter set about working his way through the order, giving Hoy a clear lead to manage before returning to the cockpit for the final half an hour.

“I was working on getting my tyres warm when I thought ‘wait a minute, there’s 40 roughly cars going into turn one so it’s going to be carnage,’ so I held back a little bit going across the line and right enough there were P2 cars parked across the track and a few corners later there were GT cars all over the place; it was a little bit lairy!” Robertson reported. “I just managed to pick my way through it and focus on getting past the other LMP3 cars before the safety car came out. That helped because it didn’t really cost us anything, it just bunched everyone up again and then just got through to the lead of the class within the first 20 minutes, then it was all about pulling out a lead to hand over to Chris and he drove really sensibly. It’s an honour to compete in the first race for them and to win it was just amazing.”

Elsewhere in GTE, Gulf Racing took a first victory with their Porsche 911 RSR GTE, which debuted at the final round at Paul Ricard last season. Despite only qualifying fifth, as Adam Carroll struggled to find the right balance in the cold conditions, the combination of a stellar opening double-stint from Phil Keen and the fortuitous timing of the safety car during Michael Wainwright’s middle stint gave the Milton Keynes outfit a clear lap’s advantage over the JMW Motorsport Ferrari of impressive BTCC convert-Sam Tordoff, George Richardson and Robert Smith in second.

Andy Prialux and Marc VDS narrowly missed the GTE podium (ELMS)

“The car worked really well, we had a bit of a scary start with so many cars going off, but everything went like clockwork really. It was easy to drive and it was pretty straightforward,” said Keen.

Matt Griffin also struggled badly in qualifying with a braking problem that cost him seven tenths in the middle sector alone, but he, Aaron Scott and Duncan Cameron were still able to recover to third in the race ahead of the Marc VDS BMW of Andy Prialux, Jesse Krohn and Henri Hassid, which served a stop-go penalty for overtaking under yellows. Regular partners Griffin and Cameron will also be competing in tomorrow’s Blancpain Endurance Series meeting at Monza and were set to fly immediately after the race ended.

“We’ll go straight into qualifying as far as I know; that will be tough because Monza is not an easy place to go and fire out a lap straightaway,” said the Irishman after qualifying.

In GTC, Franck Perera, Dino Lunardi and Eric Dermont took the spoils for TDS Racing after their chief rivals, the no. 63 AF Corse Ferrari, were eliminated in a crash with the Massive Motorsport Aston Martin.

Conway out to repay Toyota’s faith

Mike Conway is determined to repay the Toyota top brass for his promotion to a permanent drive in the World Endurance Championship, ahead of the season-opening Six Hours of Silverstone. 

After initially joining the team as test and reserve driver alongside a planned second season with Millennium Racing in LMP2 – which was sadly curtailed due to a budget shortage – the Briton was called up to replace Kazuki Nakajima on three occasions due to the Japanese’s prior commitments in Super GT and Super Formula and took a maiden win in Bahrain.

Conway gave up his unique road and street course-only IndyCar ride with Ed Carpenter Racing, which yielded a second career victory at Long Beach last year, to go full-time at Toyota, a decision which he has so far had no cause to regret.

After winning in Bahrain, Conway has been given a
full-season drive in 2015 (Adrenal Media) 

“It’s obviously what I wanted when I came to the team, so to finally get it is awesome,” Conway said at the series launch in London. “Last year there was a lot of pressure on me filling in for people and you’ve got to do the best possible job under the circumstances, but thankfully it was good enough to be put in there full-time. I’ve got to work even harder now with Alex and Steph to really prepare for the season ahead." 

Conway relished the opportunity to be a part of a championship-winning operation last season, but is now ready to shoulder more of the responsibility himself as Toyota look to defend their drivers and manufacturers titles. But Conway is well aware that with the competition making big strides over the winter, it will be anything but easy.

“Everyone feels good about last year and what they’ve achieved, it was great to be a part of it and brings everyone that confidence and an extra spring in their step,” he said. “It’s hard to win a championship, but it’s even harder to maintain it, with more competition out there it makes our job harder. It will be good to have Nissan on board as well, it just makes it better for the series, bringing more cars, creating more interest and more drivers out there – everybody is very fast!

"It’s going to be tough; we already knew that we had found a good chunk [of laptime] but everyone else has done the same, so you don’t really know where you stack up until we get out for qualifying. I’m really happy with where we’re at right now, but it’s going to be a long, hard year and we’ve got to keep working at it.”

Raised expectations for Porsche – Hartley

Brendon Hartley says expectations will be raised for Porsche’s second year in the World Endurance Championship, the German marque having surpassed all their goals upon its return to top-line sportscar racing last year. After winning the final race of the season in Sao Paolo, having already led the Le Mans 24 Hours and set four pole positions across both cars – the same number as World Champions Toyota – Porsche swept every session in the two-day Prologue at Paul Ricard and will be determined to continue where they left off at this weekend’s Six Hours of Silverstone.  

“I think we exceeded our expectations last year; the team won their final race, we had pole positions, we led the Le Mans 24 hour mark at the 22 hour mark, so obviously expectation is going to be high this year,” said Hartley, who will share the no. 17 919 Hybrid with team-mates Timo Bernhard and Mark Webber. “We need to manage that expectation because obviously our competitors have been working hard too. But we’ve grown as a team and we’re in a much better position than we were at this time last year.”

Porsche were quick in testing at Paul Ricard and will be expecting
big things in their second year back in the WEC (Adrenal Media)

The 919 Hybrid has undergone extensive revisions over the winter break and will join the eight mega-joule class for the first time, allowing them to deploy more hybrid electric energy through the front axle. First impressions have been very promising, but Hartley is hesitant to draw conclusions too early, with Toyota and Audi also making progress over the winter.

“I think 90% of the car or maybe even more is completely new,” he said. “It’s the same concept as last year and visually from the outside it looks similar with obviously a few aero updates, but we’ve got a new monocoque and everything has been evolved. It’s very bold and in typical Porsche style.

“We stuck to our programme and did a lot of laps, did lots of long runs. I think we were all surprised by the qually lap performance; was an impressive step forward compared to this time last year, but our competitors also look very strong, so we’ll be expecting a very tight and hard-fought race at Silverstone.”

The changes also come on the driver front; for round two at Spa-Francorchamps and the Le Mans 24 Hours, Porsche will join Audi in running a third car for Formula One star Nico Hulkenberg and newly-promoted Porsche GT aces Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber to give itself the best mathematical chance possible of winning at La Sarthe for the first time since 1998.

“Structurally from the team’s point of view it’s a big challenge, already last year to go from one car all the way through testing to two cars at the first round was a big task; it takes a lot of people to run these cars, but we’re up for the challenge,” he added. “Obviously having three cars on the track for Le Mans can only be a good thing; as we all know, 24 Hours is a long time and lot of things can happen in the race. We just had our briefing and having nine drivers there was a bit surprising, but it’s nice because we all get on well; everyone’s good friends and there’s a really nice team spirit.”

‘We’re there as a unit’ – Davidson

Anthony Davidson says a revitalised approach with Toyota team-mate Sebastien Buemi part-way through the 2013 season laid the foundations for the duo’s successful assault on the World Endurance Championship in 2014.

Speaking at the series launch of in London last week, Davidson reflected on the change of approach which has seen their relationship go from strength to strength with each passing race, culminating in a first title for the Japanese marque at their third attempt last season.

Davidson and Buemi won last year's WEC title (Adrenal Media)

“The relationship between drivers is an important one in endurance racing, but when Seb first arrived on the scene in sportscars he didn’t know anything about it. He was very rough around the edges and he approached it in the same way he did Formula One, which isn’t the right way, but it’s the only way that you know when you leave that world; he was there to beat me, I was there to beat him. I was the known quantity in sportscars, so he was out there to try and prove that he was better and faster, or whatever,” said the Englishman.

“But in the second year we recognised that it was never going to work, we had words and since then our relationship has been fantastic, to the point where we don’t really need to give any direction before we jump into the car. We sing from the same hymn sheet, we’re there as a unit now, rather than as individuals.

“Although showing your speed is important, we know it’s not the be-all and end-all. We just accept each other’s talents and one day he’ll be faster and the next day I’ll be faster, and that’s just how it’s worked since mid-way through 2013.”

Now with the prized number one adorning their car, Davidson and Buemi – who finished fourth in last weekend’s Long Beach e-Prix – will be joined by Kazuki Nakajima as they seek to defend their title and conquer sportscar racing’s holy grail, the Le Mans 24 Hours, for the first time. Defending their Tourist Trophy win at this weekend’s Six Hours of Silverstone would be a good start, but for Davidson, the main prize comes in June.

“I feel like for the first time in my career I’ve achieved what I set out to in that given category and its only really know Le Mans that remains in LMP1 that I’d like to win; I wouldn’t say need to win, but I’d like to win it!” he said. “It’s nice just to have the world championship as a feather in your cap and it was job well done last year, but you move on and you want to win again.”

Watts eager for Strakka return

Danny Watts is eagerly anticipating Strakka Racing’s return to competition for the first time since the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours as the team’s Dome S103 makes its long-awaited debut at this weekend’s Six Hours of Silverstone.

Originally slated to appear at the World Endurance Championship season finale in Brazil before a string of homologation issues set in, Strakka’s Nissan-engined mount has completed thousands of miles of testing and in the proven hands of Watts, Jonny Kane and Nick Leventis, should be a realistic podium contender at the team’s home race.

However, with the notoriously fickle British weather likely to play a part in deciding the outcome on Sunday and the LMP2 field boosted by the addition of Oreca’s brand new 05, Watts is hesitant to make any firm predictions. 

Strakka's Danny Watts (left) and Jonny Kane were both present
at the WEC launch in London last week (Adrenal Media)

“I’ve definitely got itchy feet! It’s been a long year and a half but hopefully the hard work with the new car will pay off at Silverstone,” said the 35 year-old, who has been with the team since 2009. 

“LMP2 is tough, there are a lot of top teams and a lot of top drivers in it and the only opportunity we’ve had to see where we are compared with everyone else was at the Prologue, where you don’t get a true representation because you don’t know what people’s run plans are – and I’m sure some people won’t have shown their full hand either.

“So far the car has run really reliably and from a driving perspective it does everything you ask, so to get straight in and get points on the board at round one is the aim. But we’ve been there before in the past when it’s been raining halfway through qualifying or it’s been raining halfway through the race, so a lot of it’s going to come down to strategy,” he added. “You rely so much on your strategists and engineers on the pit-wall to call it just right with the weather in terms of being on the correct tyre at the right time, that’s where you can lose or gain a lot of time. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens.”

A lack of race sharpness will be inevitable to some extent, but Watts is confident that it won’t be an excuse for Strakka come raceday.

“There’s a few things we need to learn in terms of rule changes and pitstop practise and so on, but we’re experienced in sportscar racing now, so it shouldn’t take long to dust off the cobwebs,” he said. “You never lose it and as soon as you get back into it, you’re naturally getting back into your self-discipline. We’re very optimistic.”