Australia’s Ryan Briscoe tipped to drive a factory Ford GT in 2016

There should be some good news coming in the next few days for Australian motorsports fans who enjoy tracking the exploits of Australians on the world stage.

If the rumours are true – and they usually are – the news will come from America and it will involve Sydneysider Ryan Briscoe, a very talented driver who has had huge success in North America, both in sports car racing and IndyCar Series competition.

Most recently, Briscoe has been a co-driver for Corvette Motorsport for the long-distance events at Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans and Road Atlanta. A few days back, Corvette announced that the factory General Motors squad had resigned all it’s four full-time drivers, but there was little said about the co-drivers.

That carefully-worded release only added more fuel to the fire that is Briscoe’s apparent connection to the Ford GT program being spearheaded by Chip Ganassi Racing in America, and which will field entries in both the United Sports Car Series in America and the FIA World Endurance Championship, which, of course, counts the 24 Hours of Le Mans as the jewel in it’s crown.

Whilst there has been no official announcement – and Briscoe wasn’t part of the group from Ganassi who shook down the awesome-looking new Ford GT machine at Daytona International Speedway recently – there is certainly plenty of speculation linking Briscoe to the job.

As the old saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and there’s certainly been plenty of smoke recently. Briscoe ticks all the boxes. He’s previously driven for Ganassi in the IndyCar Series (as recently as 2014) and has a number of sports car wins, both overall in the days of the Penske Porsche Spyder LMP2 program in the now-defunct American Le Mans Series, and more recently with Corvette in the GT ranks.

Importantly, Briscoe is also a smart, level-headed driver, who can look after a car, and is expert at coaxing every ounce of speed out of it. It’s well known that Ganassi hates drivers who wreck cars, and Briscoe rarely does that.

Given Briscoe’s noted pedigree – he won the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring with the Corvette squad this year, and might have added a 24 Hours of Le Mans victory to that list had it not been for a vicious practice crash resulting in a destroyed car – it stands to reason that Corvette wouldn’t hesitate to sign him if they could.

Why on earth would you wait? The guy has done nothing but go fast and win in your cars. You’d get in early and put pen to paper on a deal as soon as possible before someone else snapped him up.

If Corvette haven’t announced Briscoe, there’s likely a good reason: he’s off the table, likely headed to another program on a full-time deal .Sooner rather than later, we’ll hear the news officially, but if you believe the rumours, it’s already a done deal, signed, sealed and delivered. Given his ability behind the wheel of the similar Corvette machine and his previous association with Ganassi, all signs point to Briscoe being one of the drivers wheeling the new factory Ford program through it’s first season.

Who else is in the frame at Ganassi? Well, who isn’t? Every driver and his dog seems to be being bandied about recently, but you can almost guarantee that Ganassi driver Joey Hand, as good a GT driver as there is on planet earth at the moment, will be a part of the new assault. Briscoe and Hand would be an awesome combination.

Legendary American road racer Scott Pruett has long been a part of the Ganassi organisation, winning multiple races – including Daytona and Sebring – but the Californian is surely nearing the end of his career, and has spoken of winning again outright at Daytona to become the winningest driver in 24 Hours of Daytona history, and therefore would need to run that race, at minimum, with a Daytona Prototype team, which Ganassi was before launching the Ford GT program. It will be strange to not see Pruett in a Ganassi car, but something we might have to get used to.

The best news here for Briscoe is another assault on the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Australian drivers have had mixed success in recent years. The fact that Ford are pouring factory dollars into this GT program means they’re desperate to win, and, with that in mind, it’s hard to imagine Briscoe joining a better program. He’s going to benefit from top equipment, great co-drivers and a top-notch crew.

Maybe they won’t see success straight out of the box, but it won’t take the Ford and Ganassi combination long to get up to speed. Chip Ganassi hasn’t won some of the biggest races in America – the Daytona 500, 24 Hours of Daytona and Indianapolis 500, let alone multiple IndyCar and sports car championships – by accident.

The notoriously prickly Ganassi is a hard task master, but his results are the pay off, and Briscoe stands a good chance at being at or near the pointy end of GT sports car racing, battling with Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette and Aston Martin, sooner rather than later. It will be a great challenge for the Sydneysider, getting in at the ground floor of the Ford program, and – hopefully! – journeying to the top.

Ford’s arrival signals the golden era of GT sports car racing, if we haven’t already gotten to that stage, with so many of the world’s best manufacturers jumping into the pool, and looking to win. I can’t wait to see another Australian fighting for wins in the FIA’s World Endurance Championship.

Hopefully the Ford drive will raise Briscoe’s profile in his homeland, too.

Opinion: Porsche Dominate at Le Mans & Set Their Sights on a 2015 World Championship

 

In many ways, Porsche can thank Audi for their stunning 1-2 finish in the 2015 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Why? Because the team spearheaded by the wonderfully-composed Dr Wolfgang Ulrich is probably responsible for dragging the rest of the LMP1 field up to the same level.

Audi have been so good for so long, displaying a level of professionalism above and beyond what had ever been seen in LMP1 before their arrival. They are the consummate professionals, doing everything well, planning for every eventuality, and to beat such a team, the rest of the field, the Porsche’s and Nissan’s of the world, have been forced to seek a similar level of performance and accountability.

It’s not an over exaggeration to say that Audi had driven this golden era of sports car racing to the very prominent stage it’s on now. The likes of Alan McNish, Dindo Capello and Mr Le Mans Tom Kristensen carried the Four Rings to so many titles – Kristensen won nine overall, and a large proportion with Audi – and lured other teams and manufacturers to Le Mans, giving them a benchmark to meet, a challenge to accept.

On Sunday afternoon at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Porsche, who had met the challenge all through a stunning reliable race, conquered the mountain that beating Audi at Le Mans has become. It’s the Mount Everest of motorsports, the toughest assignment there is, harder, even, than beating Mercedes Benz in Formula One or Jimmie Johnson in NASCAR at the moment.

Audi has been the model team as far as winning – and winning the right way, with humility and grace – goes, and doing it with a seemingly-bulletproof car that simply outlasted the rest of it’s competition, who might’ve had faster cars, but couldn’t match the longevity that Audi boasted.

There was irony in the fate of the Audi fleet late in the race, all three cars being cruelled at various times by niggling problems – the #7 Audi, for example, had engine cover bodywork issues that put an end to their chances of going back-to-back – that, in previous years, have happened to Peugeots and Audis and BMWs, allowing Audi to race to the front, and command much of the final twelve hours of the gruelling event.

In 2015, it was those little issues and problems that delayed Audi rather than their competition, meaning that Porsche could record a memorable one-two finish, with the #19 919 Hybrid of Brit Nick Tandy, German Formula One star Nico Hulkenberg and New Zealander Earl Bamber leading home Australia’s hope, the sister #17 919 hybrid driven by our own Mark Webber, along with another Kiwi, Brendon Hartley, and Germany’s Timo Bernhard.

Most remarkable was that the winning car was viewed as the ‘third car’, one entered only for Spa and Le Mans, driven by two rising GT stars and a Formula One driver who circulates at or near the back at most Grand Prix’s. This was a car with less development and what was perceived to be the weakest of the three driver line-ups, though no trio in the LMP1 class can really be called weak.

The race-winners drove an exemplary race. They did everything right, made no mistakes, and, as often is the case in endurance events like Le Mans, rode the combination of a fast, reliable car and three level-headed drivers to a famous victory, beating a lot of very good cars and drivers across the line.

Porsche’s return to endurance sports car racing can now be deemed a success in only it’s second year, and there is the business of a World Endurance Championship crown to busy them for the rest of the year. The Webber/Hartley/Bernhard combination, who were ahead of the eventual race winners before a mildly-controversial stop-and-go penalty brought them to pit lane, will benefit from the double haul of points they received for finishing second. Hopefully their turn will come in twelve months’ time.

Sadly, the race-winning trio will now go their separate ways, not going on to race at any further World Endurance Championship events. Hulkenberg will return to the Formula One paddock with the ‘off-week’ story to beat them all, whilst Tandy will return to the LMP2 ranks with KCMG’s Oreca Nissan, and Bamber will melt back into the Porsche GT ranks. But they will never forget the second weekend in June of 2015, and nor will anyone else who witnessed, on track or on television, Porsche out-Audi’ing the Audis.

A magnificent victory – and all those (your correspondent included) who doubted Porsche had the long-term reliability to stay with Audi are enjoying our large slices of humble pie at the moment.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans Australian TV Guide

Australian broadcast details here!

The 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans begins tonight at 11:00pm AEST and with Australian Mark Webber's Porsche likely - hopefully! - to figure in the frenetic LMP1 battle at the front of the 56-car field (and plenty of New Zealand representation, in all four classes) there's more interest in the French endurance classic in this neck of the woods than ever before.

Thankfully, between FOX Sports and Eurosport, Australians can follow 20 of the 24 total hours live on television, and for the first time in race history, camera positions around the entirety of the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe will be manned all through the French night, putting an end to external shots only of the permanent sections of the track from the Porsche Curves to the Tertre Rouge corner and only in-car shots after that. About time, too!

The only time when there won't be live coverage from Le Mans is between 3:00am and 7:00am on Sunday morning AEST.

Eurosport's coverage will feature Martin Haven, Jeremy Shaw and the usual crew.

FOX has taken the Radio Le Mans call (John Hindaugh, Graham Goodwin and others) of the two World Endurance Championship races this year, but there's also a chance they'll take FOX Sports coverage from North America, which will be headed up by Bob Varsha and Calvin Fish.

All times AEST

Saturday 13 June

Pre-Race

Warm-up (5:00pm; Eurosport/Eurosport HD)
Le Mans Legends race (6:00pm; Eurosport/Eurosport HD)
Road to Le Mans (10:00pm; FOX Sports 2/FOX Sports 2 HD)
Le Mans 24 Minutes (10:15pm; Eurosport/Eurosport HD)

Race

10:30pm - 1:00am (FOX Sports 2/FOX Sports 2 HD)
10:45pm - 11:30pm (Eurosport/Eurosport HD)

Sunday 14 June

Race

1:00am - 3:00am (Eurosport/Eurosport HD)
7:00am - 11:30pm (Eurosport/Eurosport HD)
8:30am - 10:00am (FOX Sports 4/FOX Sports 4 HD)
1:00pm - 11:30pm (FOX Sports 4/FOX Sports 4 HD)

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans (Post-Qualifying) Preview

In what shapes as one of the most hotly-contested contest in more than eight decades of racing at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France, the factory LMP1 prototypes of Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Nissan are set for twenty-four hours of flat-out sprint racing for the right to be crowned champions at Le Mans, the most famous endurance motor race of them all.

Qualifying this week showed off the incredible speed that the three Porsche 919 hybrid prototypes have. It’s always a ferocious battle between Porsche and their German cousins, Audi, and qualifying honours go to Porsche, who swept the top three starting positions, leaving Audi, and everyone else, for that matter, in their wake.

Swiss ace Neel Jani’s scintillating track record lap of 3m16.887s on Wednesday evening rocketed the #18 Porsche that he shares with Frenchman Romain Dumas and Germany’s Marc Leib to the top of the sheets in the most impressive fashion imagine.

Australia’s Mark Webber will see his #19 Porsche start from second. Like their sister car, the #19 couldn’t improve on it’s Wednesday time, set by German Timo Bernhard. The third man in the car which Webber – and all of Australia – hope will take him to victory after late mechanical dramas stopped them in their tracks whilst leading inside the last four hours a year ago, is New Zealander Brendon Hartley.

Porsche have brought a third entry to Le Mans, the #17 machine, crewed by Brit Nick Tandy, another Kiwi, Earl Bamber and German Formula One star, Niko Hulkenberg. It will start in third, leading the trio of Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro machines.

In a twenty-four hour race, qualifying means little, and despite Porsche having an obvious and large advantage when it comes to overall speed, there are some serious reliability questions hanging over the Porsche squad, and it will take an absolutely perfect run for Porsche (or anyone else, for that matter) to beat the Audis, whose reliability at this race is legendary. They’re not always the fastest cars at the start, but they’re nearly always still running at the end as their competition falls by the wayside. We’ve seen it time and time again.

For mine, the car most likely to cross the line first at 3pm on Sunday afternoon local time is the #7 Audi driven by defending champions Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer. We haven’t seen such a trio of drivers at Audi since the early 2000s, when the combination of Tom Kristensen, Alan McNish and Dindo Capello. The powerful Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer combination has the chance to be as good as that legendary group and even better. They’re fast, smart and reliable, and know how to win at Le Mans. It’s a formidable mixture.

Further down the order, sit the Toyota squad, who’ve been starved for pace all week so far, and look at long odds to contend for the win. Their fastest car was 2.5 seconds behind the slowest Audi and a whopping 6.656 seconds behind the pole-sitting Porsche. Of course, stranger things have happened, but early signs aren’t good for the Japanese squad.

One of the intriguing storylines of the 2015 race is the debut of Nissan, who bring three LMP1 machines to Le Mans, and brought up the rear in the LMP1 class, qualifying. This was expected, but the development of the revolutionary Nissan GT-R LM Nismo machines as the race goes on will be very interesting to watch.

LMP2 qualifying saw the class leader actually qualify faster than the slowest LMP1 machine. The KCMG Oreca Nissan of Englishmen Matthew Howson and Spencer Bradley and Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre. They were also nearly a second ahead of their nearest competition, setting the pole lap of 3m38.032s on Wednesday night, and spending most of Thursday’s session in the garage with suspension problems.

GTE-Pro should be a frenetic race for the entirety, and qualifying went the way of Aston Martin Racing, with the #98 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of young guns Brazilian Fernando Rees, New Zealander Richie Stanaway and Great Britain’s Alex McDowall. Ferrari are close behind, as are the Manthey Porsche squad, who have struggled for speed, in what’s been one of the surprise storylines of the weekend.

There was drama in GTE-Pro qualifying, too: the #63 Corvette of Australia’s Ryan Briscoe, Brazilian Antonio Garcia and Dane Jan Magnussen involved in a huge crash at the Porsche Curves with Magnussen behind the wheel. The car has since been withdrawn, ending the hopes of Briscoe and his co-drivers to complete a rare sports car triple, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring and then Le Mans.

Finally, to GTE-Am, where professional drivers are paired with amateurs, and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Portugal’s Rui Aguas, Frenchman Francois Perrodo and Italian veteran Emanuelle Collard leading off the fourth class.

Naturally, qualifying doesn’t mean much in a race that runs an entire day. Aside from the prestige of being first in class or overall, there’s little gained by going fast over a short session, and you would be wise not to read too much into outright speed compared to reliability.

That’s why I’m leaning towards Audi over Porsche. Dr Wolfgang Ulrich’s squad is pretty much bulletproof. They’re as professional an outfit as we’ve ever seen at Le Mans, and as much as I’d love to see Mark Webber win, I have a feeling that #7 car will get it done.

Join The Roar for updates, commentary and analysis of the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans from 10:30pm AEST on Saturday evening.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans – GTE-Pro Form Guide

Even without Ford, who will join the ranks of the World Endurance Championship next year, and BMW, the GTE-Pro battle at Le Mans looks to be as tightly and hotly contested as the LMP1 class will be. Picking a winner is a difficult proposition, but here are the cars competing, and a word on each.

#51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia: twice GTE-Pro world champions and the defending Le Mans winners, the combination of Gianmaria Bruno, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander as as good as there is, not just in GTE-Pro but in any class on the track. These veteran guys are level-headed and fast, and AF Corse always provides reliable equipment. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, these guys will be right amongst it, hunting for two straight at Circuit de la Sarthe.

#71 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia: The less-fancied AF Corse car is still a legitimate threat in GTE-Pro. Veteran Oliver Beretta, he of six class wins and a further four podiums, joins regular WEC drivers Davide Rigon and Le Mans debutant James Calado. They’ll probably need some luck going their way to have a shot at the win. Realistic chance at a podium, though, because their car will be so well prepared.

#63 Corvette Racing Corvette C.7R: The great Australian hope in GTE-Pro, for this car features Ryan Briscoe, fresh from victories alongside team-mates Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen at Daytona and Sebring. A rare triple crown is on offer, and given Corvette’s generally good reliability – and a speedy trio behind the wheel – it’s not as long a shot as some might think.

#64 Corvette Racing Corvette C.7R: Two rising American stars, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor, are joined by the lank Brit Oliver Gavin, and with the backing of the impressive Corvette team, these guys have a good chance at a podium, or more, if everything plays out according to plan. Refreshing to see Americans making their mark in international sports car racing. Overshadowed by their Daytona- and Sebring-winning sister car, this might be the coming-of-age moment for the #64.

#91 Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR: These guys are as good as it gets in GTE-Pro, and deserved favourites coming into Le Mans. There’s nothing that Richard Leitz and Jorg Bergmiester can’t handle. They’re good at night, in the rain, wherever and whenever, and such skills are going to be of enormous benefit to their rookie teammate, Michael Christensen. I like this trio for the GTE-Pro win.

#92 Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR: No drop-off in talent in the second Manthey car. Wolf Henzler, Frederic Makowiecki and Patrick Pilet all know how to get around Circuit de la Sarthe quickly. The addition of Henzler to the regular WEC line-up makes this a formidable line-up. It could well be a battle between the two Manthey cars late on Sunday afternoon, and wouldn’t that be something?

#95 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE: The car that won the GTE-Am world championship a year ago moves up to the big game, and all three Danish drivers, Christoffer Nygaard, Marco Sorensen and Nick Thiim are capable of going quickly. Sorensen is a rookie, and runs a GP2 program alongside his GT commitments. These guys should have a strong race, and a podium would be a fantastic result.

#97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE: Rob Bell, Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner represent AMR’s best chance of winning at Le Mans in 2015. These guys have all been around the block many times, and have enviable records at Circuit de la Sarthe. Turner may be old, but he’s still sold behind the wheel. A trouble-free run for the #97 and they’re definite contenders.

#99 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE: The Prodrive-run Aston Martin squad have decided to throw three rookies together in their third entry, making it one of the cars to keep an eye on. Fernando Rees and Alex McDowall should’ve started here last year, but a massive accident in practice meant they didn’t see the drop of the green. In 2015, they’re joined by impressive New Zealander Richie Stanaway, who recently won a GP2 race at Monaco, and he has talent to burns. Rees has been one of the stand-outs of the season, and McDowall gets better with each race. I really like this combination, and they could surprise.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans – LMP1 Form Guide

2015 sees the Le Mans glamour class get a little more glamorous with the much-anticipated arrival of Nissan to the LMP1 grid. Whilst it’s hard to imagine them having a podium run, the speed and development of the revolutionary prototype will be one of the great storylines of the weekend, as will the expected clash of the titans up front.

Here, car by car, is my LMP1 form guide:

#1 Toyota Racing Toyota TS-040 Hybrid: The defending LMP1 world champions will be looking to complete Toyota’s return to sports car racing with a Le Mans crown. It hasn’t been a happy start to the season, with Kaz Nakajima forced to miss Spa after a practice accident. Davidson and Buemi are fast, and a win for (arguably) Toyota’s flagship car would be just the tonic to propel them towards another potential world championship.

#2 Toyota Racing Toyota TS-04- Hybrid:  Mike Conway heads to his first Le Mans as a full-time member of the Toyota squad, and is joined by Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin, who enjoyed three podium finishes with Peugoet and one with Toyota at Le Mans. Alexander Wurz, the team’s third driver, is the only man to have contested every WEC race with Toyota, and is a two-time winner at Le Mans. Solid trio of drivers, but not expected to be as fast as their sister car.

#4 Team ByKolles CLM P1/01-AER: One of two privateer efforts, the ByKolles squad are rank underdogs. Formerly a Lotus machine, the ByKolles entry certainly has straight-line speed, but I expect reliability to be an issue here.

#7 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Defending champions, the trio of Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer and Andre Lotterer is probably Audi’s most experienced trio and if they can stay out of trouble, this car represents Audi’s best shot at another Le Mans title, and will surely be remembered in the history books as the best driver trio of the modern era. They’re certainly my – and a lot of others! – pick to win. There’s nothing not to like about this trio

#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Lucas di Grassi finished second last year with Marc Gene and Tom Kristensen, and now finds himself driving alongside youngsters Oliver Jarvis – the guy who has the unenviable position of replacing the legendary Kristensen – and Loic Duval. At 32, Duval is the elder statesman of this team. Jarvis is in his first full-time season and di Grassi has limited experience. This trio might be a year or two away from really contending.

#9 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Rene Rast, Marco Bonanomi and Filipe Albuquerque are the development car as far as Audi is concerned, and it’s unlikely that we’ll see them at any other events this year. Not having an entire off-season of preparation for this race, not to mention both previous WEC races this year, will put them at a disadvantage, but, that said, any car out of the Audi stable is a threat to win, so don’t count these guys out.

#12 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-One-AER: First time we’ve seen Rebellion Racing on the track this year, which doesn’t bode well for the team, in terms of reliability over the entire race distance. The A-team of Nick Heidfield, Nicolas Prost and Mathis Beche will likely be at the back of the LMP1 field, and a finish – after a clean run – would be like a victory for these guys.

#13 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-One-AER: Le Mans rookie Daniel Abt joins LMP2 standout, Alexandre Imperatori and Dominik Kraihamer in the second Rebellion, and the same thing applies as to their team-mates. They’re behind the eight ball, and wouldn’t mind a little rain to even the playing field out a little, either.

#17 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: The Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard car was fastest in the test day last week, and continued to show that speed in qualifying. Of course, their speed has never been in doubt. Reliability is the question here. Can they find some? If so, watch out. All of Australia and New Zealand will have their fingers crossed.

#18 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Neel Jani’s Thursday qualifying lap was one for the ages. Like their teammates in the #17, Jani Marc Leib and Romain Dumas have speed to burn. Dumas won with Audi (alongside Timo Bernhard) and knows what he’s doing. After their qualifying speed, there are high hopes for this machine.

#19 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Kiwi Earl Bamber joins Formula One star Niko Hulkenberg and long-time Porsche GT driver Nick Tandy. Whilst there’s experience in the form of Tandy and Hulkenberg, Bamber is the wild card. He was quickly elevated to the LMP1 class, beating out experienced Fred Makowiecki in testing. If things to go plan, he may be battling countryman Hartley for a podium – or more.

#21 Nissan Motorsports Nissan GT-R LM Nismo: This car will run only at Le Mans, and features the first ever winner of the Nissan GT Academy, Lucas Ordonez. Japanese Super GT champion Tsugio Matsuda is joined by another winner of the GT Academy in Mark Shulzhitskiy. Not an outright win threat, but watching these three gel will be interesting.

#22 Nissan Motorsports Nissan GT-R LM Nismo: Brits Alex Buncombe and Harry Ticknell are joined by German Michael Krumm, the definite veteran of the group. Nissan Motorsport folks are high as a kite on Buncombe’s ability. Tincknell is a face of the future. A podium would be an extraordinary effort for these guys, in their first race together.

#23 Nissan Motorsports Nissan GT-R LM Nismo: Ex-Formula One driver Max Chilton gets the nod alongside Frenchman Oliver Pla, an underrated guy for years, and arguably the best GT Academy winner, Jan Mardenborough. As I said above, a podium would be monumental, and we might see short-term pace out of all three Nissans, but longer term, reliability could be an issue. This is a big dress rehearsal for a serious tilt next year. We’ll track the team’s progress with great interest on Saturday and Sunday.

Opinion: Ford’s Return Proves Sports Car Racing Is Where To Be In 2016

There will be a major press conference at Le Mans on Friday, and if the rumours swirling around the paddock are anything to go by – and they usually are – a formal announcement from the Ford Motor Company will signify their intention to join the ranks of major manufacturers going sports car racing at the highest level in 2016.

Whilst the Detroit-based group aren’t going to be dipping their toe into the hotly-contested prototype waters for the moment, they’re instead taking the next best step and entering a GT machine in the highly-competitive Grand Touring class in two different series’, taking on the likes of Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, BMW and Chevrolet. A tough battleground just got even tougher.

According to leaked details, American powerhouse Chip Ganassi Racing (with support from Roush Yates engine builders) will run the Ford program, which will consist of two full-time entries in the FIA World Endurance Championship and two more in the United Sports Car Series, the North American series that was formed when the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series merged to begin the 2014 season.

Obviously, Ford have seen the other big manufactures battling it out on racetracks in Europe and America and wanted to be a part of it. That’s no surprise, given the emergence of international sports car racing, particularly the World Endurance Championship. It’s where manufacturers want to be because it’s a cheaper alternative than Formula One, and because so much of what is learned on the track can be applied to road cars. That’s the beauty of sports car racing, and why manufacturers can justify budgets to their stakeholders. It’s research and development, and it’s prestigious.

Ford wants to get in and win the big races like Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring, and you can’t blame them. Anyone who’s seen even a snippet of the World Endurance Championship races at Silverstone and Spa this year knows how good the racing has been. It’s the perfect advertising for would-be manufacturers. How could you not want to be a part of that? Ford will be right in the thick of it, sending four cars to Le Mans in 2016.

Choosing Ganassi as the group to spearhead this effort is a good one. The team has won multiple Indianapolis 500s, IndyCar Series championships and races, and have had sustained success in North American sports car racing over the last decade, winning at Daytona and Sebring, as well as notching up championship titles. Chip Ganassi knows how to win, and he’s had previous success with Ford, running their Daytona Prototype program in the United Sports Car Series at the moment, and has had success in most everything else he’s tried, excluding NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition.

We will soon know whether Ganassi will have a hand in the World Endurance Championship side, and if so, I’ve a feeling it’ll work out just fine. There’s been some recent online comment suggesting that a North American team doesn’t have the necessary know-how to win races in Europe, and to that I say this: both the factory Corvette squad and the LMP2 Starworks Motorsport have come from America to have success in Europe. The yellow Corvettes have made winning at Le Mans in GT1/GTE-Pro an art form, and the Florida-based Starworks squad won the LMP2 world championship in 2012.

GT racing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is going to be epic in 2016. Sports car racing is enjoying something of a golden age at the moment. So many major manufacturers are now involved in GT racing, and we can only wonder and speculate about who else might be thinking about a factory effort? It would be great to see Honda and maybe even Mazda step up to the plate.

It seems crazy to already be looking ahead to next season, with half a year of racing left in this one, but that’s how much sports car fans are anticipating Ford’s arrival.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans Preview

It’s early June in the French countryside, and that can only mean one thing! The French endurance classic, the 24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans), part of the fabled triple crown of motorsport alongside the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500, is on again.

As has been tradition for decades now, thousands of drivers and crewmen have descended upon the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe, an exhilaratingly fast combination of permanent circuit and local streets that measures 13.629 kilometres in left, featuring 38 turns, amongst them some of the most recognised in all of racing: Tertre Rouge, Arnage and the incredible Porsche Curves, where innovation and cutting-edge technology is own show for a global viewing audience, not to mention a giant number of fans watching trackside.

2015’s instalment of the greatest race in the world is shaping as one of the all-time great ones, particularly at the pointy end of the field, the LMP1 class, where defending champions/Le Mans specialists Audi have their hands extra-full this year, and to win again in 2015, they must stave off factory challenges from Porsche, Toyota and newcomers, Nissan, who debut their revolutionary prototype this weekend.

Le Mans is the centrepiece of the FIA World Endurance Championship, and the only race that pays double points. As much as teams want to win the overall season championship, I’m betting that if you asked them to choose between a WEC crown and a Rolex watch, which overall and class winners receive on the podium at Circuit de la Sarthe, they’d take a victory at Le Mans every day of the week.

If the first two events of the 2015 World Endurance Championship season are anything to go by, we can expect multiple battles throughout the mammoth field. Over fifty cars are scheduled to take the green flag at 11:00pm Australian eastern standard time on Saturday night, in four separate classes on the one track:

LMP1: the fastest cars on the track, mostly factory-supported prototypes driven by fully-professional pilots. This is the glamour category, especially with the arrival of Nissan in 2015.

LMP2: privateer-based prototype racing, with both professional and amateur drivers in each car.

GTE-Pro: Grand Touring cars driven by professional drivers, and factory-supported. Porsche, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Chevrolet are all major players.

GTE-AM: Slightly slower Grand Touring models that feature both pro and amateur drivers.

Australian hopes rest with two men in the two major categories: Mark Webber and his Porsche 919 hybrid prototype in LMP1 and Sydneysider Ryan Briscoe, who will be wheeling one of the Chevrolet Corvettes fielded by the American factory squad in the GTE-Pro category.

The Porsche that Webber will share with New Zealander Brendon Hartley and German Timo Bernhard was the fastest in pre-race testing last weekend, but there’s a major difference between being fast and being reliable. Remember, Porsche showed speed last year, with Webber leading into the last quarter of the race, but the promising run was cruelled by mechanical demons.

Porsche, Toyota and Nissan all face an uphill challenge to beat the Audi fleet, whose cars are generally considered to be bulletproof as far as reliability goes. It’s fair to say that in their recent run of victories at Le Mans, Audi hasn’t always had the fastest car at Le Mans, they have had a car that’s suffered no major mechanical mishaps whilst their competition falls by the wayside.

Dr Wolfgang Ulrich’s Audi squad are unquestionably the pros when it comes to winning Le Mans in the modern era. Toyota, world champions in 2014, won’t feel like they’ve had any real success in their WEC foray without a win at Le Mans. And the Nissan squad will be out to prove to the doubters that their revolutionary front-wheel drive GT-R prototype is up to snuff, as well.

Webber’s chances of winning outright are fair, but Briscoe’s are pretty good. He knows what he’s doing at Le Mans, making a second start there, and is paired with two drivers, Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia, who’re also no strangers to going fast. The trio have tasted considerable success in 2015, winning their class at the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in North America. Not a bad way to lead into Le Mans, is it?

The Corvette squad are no strangers to winning at Le Mans, but the GTE-Pro battle promises to be hard-fought right to the end. In fact, I have a feeling it’s going to be as cutthroat as the LMP1 fight. The Team Manthey Porsche squad are shaping as Chevrolet’s biggest competition for class victory. Then you’ve got the AF Corse Ferraris and the three-pronged Aston Martin attack. On their day, any one of the cars entered in GTE-Pro can win. That’s how close it’s going to be.

Twenty-four hours is a long time around the Circuit de la Sarthe, and the night will be treacherous, with four classes of cars at differing speeds all fighting for their own piece of an unlit racetrack. It’ll be a flat-out sprint at the front in LMP1 – no conserving your car for the last few hours, as used to be the norm at Le Mans – and we’ll see tight battles right through the fifty-six car field. 2015 will likely be the most frenetic race we’ve witnessed at Le Mans.

Porsche were lightning fast in first qualifying, with the #18 Porsche of Neel Jani setting a 3m 16.887 lap, which may well stand up through tomorrow’s second session. The Bernhard/Webber/Hartley Porsche was second, and the team’s third entry made it a handy early trifecta. The fastest Audi, it must be said was fourth – but three seconds back of Jani’s time. That’s undoubtedly a big game to make up, but there’s plenty of time.

Picking winners at the front of the field is tough, given how much can – and often does – happen over the course of a day at Le Mans, but it’s very hard to go past Audi. Their reliability is probably what’s going to get them across the line.

Join The Roar for live updates and commentary from 10:30pm Saturday night.

Checkered Flag Beckons For Mr. Le Mans, Tom Kristensen

Truly great race car drivers aren’t unearthed every day of the week.

Indeed, the most talented and gifted seem to pop up only once or twice in a generation, and deserve every single plaudit that comes there way for their skill and tenacity. We’ve seen some great names grace racetracks the world over in the last twenty years: the likes of Michael Schumacher, Jimmie Johnson and Sebastien Vettel, to name just three of the most dominant in recent years.

Yet, there is another man whose accomplishments rank right up there with those three, and, sadly, most Australians don’t know the name Tom Kristensen, let alone his impressive and incredible racing resume amassed over 15 years at the top of sports car racing.

Kristensen – also known as TK, the Great Dane, or Mr. Le Mans – is to the world of high-level endurance sports car racing what Michael Schumacher or Sebastien Vettel is to Formula One. And his glittering career comes to an end this weekend, at the Sao Paolo, Brazil round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Throughout nearly two decades at the top of international sports car racing, TK’s record stands for itself, and it’s an impressive body of work: nine wins from eighteen attempts at Le Mans (including six straight outright with Audi from 2000-2005), six overall wins at the 12 Hours of Sebring, a win at Petit Le Mans, 2001 American Le Mans Series champion and, most recently, the 2013 FIA World Endurance Champion.

And that’s only his major race victories. He’s won countless other ALMS, ELMS and WEC events at tracks as Road America, Spa, Austin and Shanghai. You can make a solid case that Kristensen is the best driver never to grace a Formula One paddock.

To have a 50% success rate at Le Mans, a gruelling race where there are, quite literally, a thousand and one things that can go wrong during the endurance test – mechanical gremlins, your own accident, weather, getting caught up in someone else’s accident – is staggering. Absolutely staggering. There was a time in the early part of the 2000s when you might as well have just gone ahead and inscribed TK’s name on the winner’s trophy at Le Mans, such was his dominance. You must wonder at the sort of despondency the rest of the grid felt knowing that, for the most part, they were racing for second.

Audi’s success at Le Mans and elsewhere in endurance sports car racing – the American Le Mans Series, World Endurance Championship and even the European Le Mans Series – can be tied to Kristensen. Aside from only his long-time Scottish co-driver, Alan McNish, sports car racing has rarely seen a more pugnacious driver. The combination of Kristensen, McNish and the wizened Italian Dindo Capello was a formidable one, to say the very least.

Sure, Audi had the budget, technology and the thirst for success, but none of that matters if you don’t also have a driver capable of putting your car at the pointy end of the field. TK did that, time and time again. In recent years, he has played a significant Kristensen elevated Audi’s crop of younger drivers, and with Capello and McNish retiring in recent years, has become the elder statesman to the up-and-coming fleet of superstar drivers that Audi are slowly bringing into a program once dominated by the old trio, the Audi rat pack of TK, McNish and Capello, fast friends and faster drivers.

Guys like Marcel Fassler, Mike Rockenfeller, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer have benefited immensely from having come up with Kristensen as their racing mentor. So, TK’s legacy will last at Audi for many years into the future.

It’s hard to pinpoint Kristensen’s best win. Is it 2004 in the Audi R8, his sixth win, equalling the great Jacky Ickx’s record? Or a year later, when he broke Ickx’s record – one that most pundits doubted would ever be equalled, let alone bettered?

Both were superb history-making drives, but I can’t go past the 2013 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was a tough race, with Kristensen’s fellow Danish driver Alan Simonsen tragically died after crashing his Aston Martin heavily into the barriers at Tetre Rouge early in the event. At the behest of Simonsen’s family, the race continued, and after twenty-four gruelling hours, Kristensen (with McNish and Frenchman Loic Duval) came out on top after a knock-down-drag-out battle with Toyota and with his own emotions after Simonsen’s death.

We’ve rarely seen such emotional scenes at the Circuit de la Sarthe as we saw that day. Kristensen dedicated the race to his father, who had died of cancer a few weeks earlier, and Simonsen a few hours earlier – the two had been friends, and Simonsen was well liked by all – and I daresay that the entire motorsports world had tears in their eyes as we watched the Great Dane celebrate on the podium. The legend of TK grew even more that day. Aside from everything else, it was his ninth – and, we now know, final – win at Le Mans. To be able to drive through the grief he was surely feeling makes it, to my mind, is most legendary triumph.

Most importantly: by all accounts, Kristensen is as good a man as he was a racer, which is, by all accounts, more than can be said for someone like Vettel, and proof of that is in the warm tributes that have been flowing from all corners of the globe since TK announced his retirement, and will continue to stream in well after he turns his final laps of competition in the World Endurance Championship finale next weekend in Brazil.

Legend is an over-used word in sport, a tag attached too easily for my liking, but Tom Kristensen, Mr. Le Mans, is a legend in every sense of the word, a man whose accomplishments will live on for decades and decades after his retirement and, indeed, after he is dead and buried. Will we ever see one man dominate the 24 Hours of Le Mans as TK has dominated? I doubt it.

Thanks for so many memories, TK. As race fans, we’re better for having watched you over the years. Sports car racing won’t be the same without you on the grid.

Audi Finish 1-2 After A Dramatic 82nd 24 Hours of Le Mans

Like so many times before...Audi finished 1-2 at the 82nd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but had you turned on the television to watch just the last sixty or ninety minutes of the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic from France and saw the two Audi R18 e-tron quattro prototypes cross the line in a nice, neat formation, you could be forgiven for thinking that the powerhouse German squad had romped to victory once more, lucky thirteen for Dr Wolfgang Ulrich’s team.

Instead, the true story of the race was less of Audi’s dominance – they only really dominated the last few hours – and more about the challengers to that fabled squad’s chokehold dominance on the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was never easy for Audi, not even in the last hour of the tension-filled race, not with mysterious electrical ailments, accidents, thunderstorms and more. We say it every year: Le Mans had everything. This year, it really did.

For a time, it seemed that Toyota, in their second season at Le Mans, would storm to victory. The #7 TS 040 Hybrid could do no wrong in the early going. Then, disaster struck, the pole-sitting car succumbing to mechanical gremlins, coming to a stop on the racetrack with little warning that anything was wrong. This was the car that had led for most of the day, and seemed set to deliver Toyota it’s first victory at Le Mans, and only the second for a manufacturer based in Asia.

As so often happens at Le Mans, a good effort that could have turned easily into a race-winning effort went up in smoke. Toyota were clearly heart-broken. Earlier, the #8 had crashed during a thunderstorm in the race’s early stages, and was scarcely a factor after that.

Benefitting from Toyota’s misfortune was the #1 Audi, defending champions, who had been through so much in the lead-up to race day, with Mr Le Mans, the Dane Tom Kristensen shooting for his tenth overall victory.

In the end, Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer became three-time winners at Le Mans—notching their third overall win in four years—following the demise of the #7 Toyota, #20 Porsche and, crucially, their sister car, the #1 Audi with Kristensen aboard, those three pacesetters falling from the lead in succession, each incident more dramatic than the one before.

For Australian fans, and for the giant contingent of Porsche fans the world over, the retirement of the #20 Porsche after it stopped on track with Webber behind the wheel and in second place, is the bitterest pill of them all. So close yet so far for the German squad, making their prototype return to Le Mans. It is often said that you need a year under your belt before challenging for overall victory at the Circuit de la Sarthe, but Porsche very nearly made a mockery of that, and of suggestions they would be unlikely to see the race’s halfway point.

Webber, along with Timo Bernhard and young Kiwi Brendon Hartley, very nearly delivered the sort of victory that would have ensured their ever-lasting presence in the Le Mans history books. They deserved more than an electrical gremlin shuttering their garage and their chance at a win, with only about two hours left.

The #2 had the same problems as the #1, both cars stopping to change their turbochargers, but it was thanks to an incredible rebound drive from Andre Lotterer, a quintuple stint through the late morning and into the afternoon as he chased down the #20 Porsche who had inherited the lead after successive Audi issues. Surely, Lotterer’s effort will be remembered in the annals of Le Mans.

It was a powerful, stunning drive, and the #2 Audi had speed to burn. So much so that Mark Webber told Eurosport that he didn’t think the Porsche had enough legs to hold back Lotterer, who was coming on like a bull at a gate. Those in the know aren’t surprised by Lotterer’s efforts. He’s got a big future in store for him at Audi. This win, because it came after so many trials and tribulations, will perhaps be the sweetest of all for Audi. Down on top-end speed compared to Toyota and Porsche, this was a win in which they showed incredible resilience.

In LMP2, we saw a surprise winner: the #38 Jota Sport Zytek-Nissan won, with the driver trio of Simon Dolan, Harry Ticknell and Oliver Turvey surviving late-race drama. Turvery is the man who stepped in late, covering for Marc Gene, who went to LMP1 to take Loic Duval’s spot in the #1 Audi, after the Thursday crash that ruled Duval out. From the couch to Le Mans victory lane in three days – amazing!

GTE-PRO was another fierce battleground, but the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander triumphed as the dominant #97 Aston Martin experienced late trouble, and despite a heavy push from the #73 Chevrolet Corvette.

Aston Martin found redemption in GTE-AM, with the all-Danish team of Kristian Poulsen, David Heinemeier Hansson, and Nicki Thiim handing out a motor racing lesson. They led more than half the race and, despite a late-race trip to the garage, finished a lap clear of their nearest competitors.  A year after losing Denmark’s Alan Simonsen in a crash at the start of the race, the huge Danish contingent around the racetrack enjoyed an emotional win.

So often this race turns on a spectacle on a grand scale, but there have been few Le Mans editions as gut-wrenching and exciting as this, with the hopes of teams and drivers rising so high and crashing so hard. It’s incredible that at the end of a day’s worth of racing, we still witnessed battles well into the final hour. With the emergence of Toyota and Porsche and the great battles in LMP2 and GTE-Pro classes, you can only wonder at what we might see in a year’s time.

And so we close the book on the 2014 edition of the greatest endurance race in the world. Simply put, there’s no other race quite like the French classic, the sternest test of man and racing machinery.

It’s not a stretch to say that the 2014 running of the 24 Heures Du Mans will be remembered as one of the greatest.

2014 24 Hours of Le Mans: GTE-PRO Class Preview

In terms of factory participation and cutthroat competition, the Grand Touring Pro (GTE-PRO) class figures to be perhaps the most interesting and fascinating at this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Unlike GTE-AM, where amateur/sportsman drivers are allowed, the ranks of GTE-PRO are filled with the world’s best professionals, driving factory-backed efforts in some of the most beautiful racing cars ever.

Here is my look, car-by-car, at GTE-PRO:

#51 AF Ferrari 458 Italia – AF Corse: All three drivers, Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella – have scored class victories at Le Mans, and the combination also won the last World Endurance Championship round at Spa-Francorchamps. This car should not be taken lightly. The Ferrari’s reliability combined with one of the best driver combinations in any class nudges them right into the upper echelon of GTE-PRO.

#52 AF Ferrari 458 Italia – RAM Racing: A British team featuring Matt Griffin, Alvaro Parente and Federico Leo, running an Italian car, RAM Racing won the 2013 European Le Mans Championship and now have their sights set on the World Endurance Championship. Steady if unspectacular at Silverstone and Spa, and third-quickest on test day. A relatively inexperienced line-up, the #52 would need a lot of attrition to have a shot at a podium.

#71 AF Ferrari 458 Italia – AF Corse: Two rookies, Davide Rigon, Pierre Kaffer (a late replacement for James Calado, who crashed in qualifying) and the impressive Olivier Beretta, formerly a Chevrolet Corvette factory driver, who is just one year shy of twenty years of Le Mans experience.  AF Corse can certainly prepare a race car, and although they’re recognised as the “other” car out of that stable, they may surprise.

#73 Chevrolet Corvette C7 – Corvette Racing: The big guns from across the Atlantic bring their beautiful yellow C7 charger to Le Mans, the first completely-new Corvette to race in France since 2005. Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia, twice winners in the Tudor Sports Car Series in America in the C7, are joined by and rising American Jordan Taylor, himself a winner in Tudor Series prototype competition. Definitely a force to be reckoned with, especially if their low drag configuration works the way they want it to. You can never count out the ‘Vette squad.

#74 Chevrolet Corvette C7 – Corvette Racing: Oliver Gavin, Richard Westbrook and American Tommy Milner will steer the second Corvette C7, and don’t figure to be any less strong than the #73. Milner won in 2011 with Garcia and Olivier Beretta, and Gavin has won four times in twelve starts with Corvette. Speed and Le Mans experience makes a lethal combination, and these guys should be strong.

#91 Porsche 911 RSR – Porsche Team Manthey: The first of the real GTE-PRO powerhouse so far in 2014 (and last year at Le Mans), features an all-star line-up of Jorg Bergmeister, Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet. Three of the best GT drivers in the Porsche stable. These guys, combined with expected bulletproof reliability spells trouble for the rest of the field. Probably the team to beat.

#92 Porsche 911 RSR – Porsche Team Manthey: The sister car is probably the other team to beat. Team Manthey went one-two in their first attempt at Le Mans last year, and the driving combination of Marco Holzer, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki, over from Aston Martin Racing, and the fastest in class during the recent Le Mans test day. Holzer gets his first – very well deserved – run in a Porsche factory car. It might be another memorable day for the #91 and #92. Tough to decide which team is better.

#97 Aston Martin Vantage V8 – Aston Martin Racing: Well behind the Porsches at the Test Day (more than two seconds back, in fact) prompted some changes to the balance of the AMR Vantage V8. Turner, Mucke and Senna are a solid line-up, and this is the car that scored a surprise podium last year. With elevated competition this year, a lot of other crazy things would have to happen for a repeat effort.

#99 Aston Martin Vantage V8 – Aston Martin Racing: The #99, to be driven by Fernando Rees, Alex MacDowall and Darryl O’Young has been withdrawn from the race, due to crash damage, when Rees went off track at the Porsche Curves. The chassis was damaged too badly for a rebuild.

Join me at The Roar for live coverage of the opening and closing stages of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans, beginning with pre-race activities from 10.30pm AEST Saturday night.

2014 24 Hours of Le Mans: LMP1-H Prototype Class Preview

The glamour class of the World Endurance Championship & 24 Hours of Le Mans is where the overall race winner will come from. Though there are only seven cars – 3 Audis, two Porsches and two Toyotas – entered in the Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1-Hybrid) class, it is likely to provide the best racing and most compelling storylines.

Here, car by car, is my form guide for LMP1 heading into the weekend’s 24-hour enduro.

#1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Audi Sport Team Joest: Defending winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship. Lead driver Tom Kristensen is shooting for his tenth overall victory at Le Mans. Loic Duval crashed the #1 hard in practice on Thursday, and has been ruled unfit to race by medical personnel. Former Peugeot factory driver Marc Gene replaces Duval. Nonetheless, a strong driver combination. Will be relying on better reliability than faster cars around it.

#2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Audi Sport Team Joest: This is the car that most pundits think will, barring unforeseen circumstances, be at the pointy end on Sunday afternoon. The combination of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer have won Le Mans twice before, in 2011 and 2012, and are, in terms of chemistry, the most veteran line-up in the Audi camp. Hard to go past them.

#3 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Audi Sport Team Joest: The trio of Filipe Albuquerque, Marco Bonanomi and Oliver Jarvis are something of the forgotten group in the Audi stable. That makes them the underdog. Could surprise, like the then-underdog group of Fassler, Lotterer and Treluyer did three years ago. Any Audi entry has to be taken seriously.

#7 Toyota TS 040-Hybrid – Toyota Racing: Alexander Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima have played second fiddle to their team-mates in the #8 through two rounds of the World Endurance Championship. The key for both Toyota entries is whether their pace matches their reliability. Whether their giant hybrid system will last twenty-four hours is the big question.

#8 Toyota TS 040-Hybrid – Toyota Racing: Winners of the Six Hours of Silverstone and the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps this year and fastest in the Le Mans Test Day two weekends ago, Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sebastien Buemi are Toyota’s best hope at beating Audi and Porsche. Davidson is a solid driver, and he’s gaining a reputation for being a serious tearaway. Him against, say, Kristensen in the last few hours would be a mighty duel. As I wrote above, mechanical reliability is the key. Can Toyota survive? If so, watch out, because they’ve proven they’re fast as anything else on the track.

#14 Porsche 919 Hybrid – Porsche Team: As far as Australia is concerned, the “other” Porsche in the race, but the trio of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb are far from slouches. The way Porsche have set up their car, with a big hybrid energy package and a small engine, doesn’t exactly lend itself to long-term success. If they can survive, watch out for Dumas. A long-time Porsche prototype driver, and one of the fastest guys in the world.

#20 Porsche 919 Hybrid – Porsche Team: A nice ANZAC alliance here, with Australia’s Mark Webber and New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley alongside German Timo Bernhard. Believed to be the stronger of the two Porsche efforts, this is a trio who could figure for at least a podium, if their car survives, because you’ve got three guns behind the wheel. As for Webber, I would imagine he might call it a successful weekend if he manages to go through practice, qualifying and the race without getting airborne.

[In the companion LMP1-L category, for privateers running cars without hybrid packages, there are two Toyota R-One coupe cars run by Rebellion Racing and an intriguing Nissan Zeod RC prototype, similar to the radical Delta Wing, running at the back of the LMP1 class, the 56th garage spot given to experimental technology entries, but will not challenge for the overall victory]

Join me at The Roar for live coverage of the opening and closing stages of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans, beginning with pre-race activities from 10.30pm AEST Saturday night.

2014 24 Hours of Le Mans Preview

It’s that time of year again.

The eyes of the motorsports world turn to the ancient French city of Le Mans and the famous, epic Circuit de la Sarthe,  where the 82nd running of the 24 Heures du Mans, the third – and, by far the most important – round of the 2014 World Endurance Championship.

Like the other two races that make up the Triple Crown of motorsports, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500, winning at Le Mans isn’t easy. In fact, it must feel nigh on impossible at times. Some of the best drivers in the world have tried and failed, have been cruelled by the lightning-fast racetrack that’s unlike any other in global motorsports.

Five classes of cars will take part in the race:

LMP1-Hybrid: The premiere class. Porsche, Toyota and Audi hybrid entries, steered the best sports car drivers in the world.

LMP1-L: A class for privateers without hybrid engines, featuring only two cars, both from Rebellion Racing.

LMP2: Open-topped prototypes, not factory backed.

GTE-PRO: Premiere Grand Touring class featuring professional drivers driving factory-backed cars.

GTE-AM: Grand Touring class featuring a mix of professional and amateur drivers, driving non-factory supported cars.

Over the 24-hour period, the winners will complete more than 5,000 km (3,110 mi). The current race record is a massive 5,410 km (3,360 mi), in a lightning fast 2010 event that featured very few cautions. That makes a modern 24 Hours of Le Mans more than six times longer than the Indianapolis 500 and eighteen times longer than a Formula One Grand Prix.

Circuit de la Sarthe, a combination of permanent racetrack and public streets surrounding it, is a tough place to drive successfully, particularly at night, and even if a team’s drivers put in a flawless, mistake-free performance, there’s no guarantee that a win, podium or even a finish is guaranteed. Not with the car under such great mechanical stress – more than half of a lap around Le Mans is spent at 100% throttle. We’ve seen it so many times over the years, a driving combination dead-on, gapping the field, only to have a mechanical gremlin end their hopes.

2014, the third year of the World Endurance Championship, effectively represents something of a new competitive dawn at the twice-around-the-clock French endurance classic.

Particularly in the premiere hybrid prototype class (LMP1-H) that represents the best of the best in sports car racing – and technological advancement on the racetrack; these cars are more advanced than even Formula One – there will be a ferocious battle for twenty-four hours around Circuit de la Sarthe. Sports car enthusiasts have been waiting for this one for many years!

At the pointy end, it’s the prototype battle we’ve all yearned for: the defending champions Audi face stiff competition from Toyota, who impressed early in last year’s race, taking the lead and running away from Audi before mechanical gremlins struck, and World Endurance Championship newcomers, Porsche (who still have the most wins of any manufacturer at Le Mans), whose two-car assault is led by Australia’s own Mark Webber and a New Zealander by the name of Brendon Hartley, who isn’t known to many yet, but his profile is on the rise, and this kid is one to watch.

Toyota, with it’s TS-040 Hybrid has been the team to beat at both the Silverstone and Spa rounds of the World Endurance Championship (and were fastest at the recent test day), but discounting Audi and calling the German squad anything but the team to beat would do a major disservice to the most accomplished sports car outfit of the last decade.

After all, Audi is the team that boasts the Great Dane, Tom Kristensen, who is this year shooting for an unprecedented tenth overall win. If there’s a guy you want in your car at Le Mans, it’s the man affectionately known as TK. He’s like a machine around Circuit de la Sarthe, and, if I were a betting man, I would be loath to put my money anywhere else. Audi have a team known as much for it’s driver line-up as it’s bulletproof reliability.

That said, the Audi squad suffered a rare setback in Thursday practice, when the #1 R18  e-tron quattro car that Kristensen will share with Lucas Di Grassi and Loic Duval went airborne at the Porsche Curves. The car will have to be completely rebuilt before qualifying, but the news is not so good for Duval, who has not been medically cleared to race. He will be replaced by Marc Gene (at Le Mans to drive in LMP2 with the Jota Zytek team), who won outright with Peugeot in 2009, alongside Australian David Brabham.

Gene is a solid replacement, and despite the necessary rebuild, I’m still tipping the #1 Audi as the team to beat. You wonder if they haven’t had their dose of bad luck for the race, out of the way nice and early. Toyota and Porsche still need to transfer their first starts to the season in the six-hour events into long-term speed. Until then, the Audi squad deserves it’s favouritism.

The GTE-PRO category looks to be another fierce battleground. There are factory entries from Porsche, Chevrolet, Ferrari and Aston Martin, and more top-flight drivers than you can poke a stick at. It’s the first visit to Le Mans for Chevrolet’s new C7 Corvette, and the American team is coming with both barrels loaded. Their driving lineup is stellar, and Corvette will be looking for it’s eighth class victory.

Standing in their way is the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia, driven by Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella. For mine, this is the best trio in GTE-PRO, and they will be hard to beat. They won last time out at Spa, finding speed at just the right time. With the Corvette’s susceptible to gearbox and motor overheating issues, the #51 Ferrari may well be the team to beat in the premiere GT category.

At the recent test day, it was the #92 Porsche 911RSR of Frederic Makowiecki (alongside team-mates, Richard Lietz and Marco Holzer) who had the fastest time in GTE-PRO for Porsche Team Manthey, who scored a memorable 1-2 in this class one year ago. The #92 is another car to keep an eye on, with it’s own stellar line-up featuring Frenchman Patrick Pilet, British ace Nick Tandy and German Jorg Bergmeister. All three guys are at the top of their driving game. It may well be another Porsche 1-2 on Sunday afternoon.

Join The Roar for live coverage of the opening stages of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans from 10.30pm AEST Saturday evening.