The new ORECA 07 meets expectations at Monza Prologue
American endurance season started a few weeks ago with the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, time has come to start the endurance season on this side of the globe with the European Le Mans Series and World Endurance Championship Prologue, which took place last week as the spring started, on the Monza Autodromo in Italy. For all the ORECA 07 entered in both of these championships, the rehearsal was as productive as it was positive. This announces a great international endurance season to come, for the new born ORECA prototype.
For the first time, the traditional ELMS and WEC “Prologue” was organised on the mythical Monza Autodromo and was particularly awaited for. First, because it was the first time that all the competitors came together, but also because it was the first occasion to see the new LMP2 prototypes on track.
Beside one of both CEFC Manor TRS Racing cars, all the ORECA 07 entered in the coming Silverstone rendez-vous in 10-days time, were present in Monza (March 28th and 29th for ELMS and April 1rst and 2nd for WEC), as well as both Alpine A470. Each car was able to complete a great number of laps which was a good satisfaction for ORECA, only two weeks before the start of the 2017 season which promises to be uncertain and definitely exiting.
Two days and five sessions, including one by night, offered 14 hours of testing for the competitors in order to prepare the season to come. If the WEC teams will not make it back to Monza this year, it is not the case of ELMS competitors who will be back on May 12th- 14th, which means that the prologue allowed them to gather important information to prepare the race itself. Generally speaking, the teams used the very fast configuration of the Italian track to test numerous set-ups on the new ORECA 07.
With quite nice weather conditions, besides a little rain during the WEC night session, the ORECA 07 performances made it possible to show the real potential and competitiveness of the car in both championships. In ELMS, G-Drive Racing was the fastest ORECA, completing a lap in 1’36.741, but it’s the TDS Racing ORECA 07 who set the overall best lap time of the week on Sunday morning, topping the time sheet with 1’36.078.
Xavier Combet, TDS Racing team principal was happy to be the fastest LMP2 car, even though he knows that all things are relative: “I am very happy and pleased about the work done by our drivers all along these tests. We completed almost all the work we had planned this week, but there are always little thing you have to deal with. Of course, we always would like to have more time, but this is the same for all the teams. We showed that we can be competitive and I think we have well started to understand the car and how to make the most out of it. Even if we will have only ORECA’s on track in the LMP2 category, the races promise to be exceptional as soon as Silverstone. We will continue to work hard, as the competition level is very high, and we don’t want to make any mistake.”
Graff Racing, DragonSpeed, Vaillante Rebellion, CDFC Manor TRS Racing, Signatech Alpine Matmut and Jackie Chan DC Racing also completed a successful test session, showing performance on the timesheets one after the other.
The real racing will start in less than two weeks in Silverstone, as the European endurance season will start with the first ELMS meeting and the first WEC race. Two exceptional events in which the ORECA 07 will definitely make sensation!