A squad of ORECAs ready for new Battle of the Ardennes

Traditional event in the FIA World Endurance Championship, this upcoming round at Spa-Francorchamps racetrack will be the very last direct confrontation for contenders before the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For this second round of the FIA WEC, ORECA’s delegation will count no less than ten cars: a first for an LM P2 manufacturer at this level of competition!

The hills of Spa-Francorchamps racetrack are real difficulties, yet drivers get very excited about them. Performances in the LM P2 class have improved since the new rules and regulations have been in place, so this excitement should move up a notch. Last year, LM P2 raced at 200Km/h on average. This season, one can expect the cars to go even faster. Those coming out of ORECA’s workshops will probably come near 300km/h at the end of the Kemmel straight, the track’s fastest point.

Together with performance levels, it is also the overall level of teams that has increased in that class. Lessons learned after the opening round in Silverstone have actually confirmed what everyone thought after the prologue in Monza: an amazing and closely-fought battle is about to take place between Jackie Chan DC Racing – first round winner – G-Driver Racing, Vaillante Rebellion, TDS Racing, Signatech Alpine Matmut and CEFC Manor TRS.

With this Belgium round now approaching, the World Championship will soon welcome entry by Alpine A470 (#35) as part of Team Singatech Alpine Matmut, driven by Nelson Panciatici, Pierre Ragues and André Negrao while on board the #36 car, Romain Dumas will be replacing Nicolas Lapierre, alongside Matt Rao and Gustavo Menezes. Also, injured French driver Matthieu Vaxivière will be temporarily replaced by Ben Hanley on board TDS Racing’s ORECA #28.

With eleven cars entered in LM P2 at these 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, this second race of the season – starting at 2.30pm on Saturday May 6th – and last confrontation before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will be a key event. A great opportunity for contenders to gauge themselves against each other one last time before heading off to the legendary challenge in Le Mans (June 17th & 18th), which will kick start with the Test Day on Sunday June 4th.

2016 LM P2 records – Spa-Francorchamps :

Pole position : 2’07.363 – Rusinov-Berthon-Rast / Oreca 05-Nissan / G-Drive Racing

Win : Alpine A460 – Nissan / Menezes-Lapierre-Richelmi / Team Signatech Alpine 151 laps (194,2 km/h average speed)

Fastest Lap : 2’09.317 – René Rast / Oreca 05-Nissan / G-Drive Racing