The Paul-Ricard circuit launches the LMS season

It has now been six months since the curtain fell on the 2010 season of Le Mans Series and the coronation of Team Oreca Matmut. This year, the Var stable and its Peugeot 908 HDi FAP headed towards ILMC. The fight for the title should pit Pescarolo Team against Rebellion Racing.

Before the start of testing on Friday, the French team will present the livery of its prototype, the rear part of which has been redesigned, and which will be entrusted to the Collard-Jousse-Tinseau trio. Rebellion Racing will be present in force with two Lolas now equipped with a V8 Toyota promising to be formidable. Quifel-ASM with its Zytek 09 SC will make its first outing in the premier category after having competed for several seasons in LMP2.

The LMP2 category, in fact, will be made up of six cars this weekend with two HPD ARX-01d pure RML and Strakka Racing. There will also be two of the Oreca 03s. One for Race Performance, which opted for a Judd engine, and one for TDS Racing, which chose a Nissan V8. The trio Perez-Companc / Russo / Kaffer will continue to learn his Lola B11/40 entered under the Pecom Racing banner. If the RLR Sport team, its antique MG Lola EX264-AER will only be able to make up the numbers, the Extreme Limite AM Paris team will try to prove the quality of the Norma M200P.

Hope Racing, Neil Garner Motorsport and Pegasus Racing will be traveling with an Oreca 09. These three models in addition to the two from JMB Racing, the Formula Le Mans category will feature five cars.

Trois Porsche 997 (Imsa Performance, Felbermayr Proton and Prospeed Compétition) will face each other in GTE Pro Aston Martin Vantage (Young Driver AMR and Jota Sport), a Ferrari 458 AF Corse entrusted to the Bruni-Fisichella duo, and a Ferrari F430 defending the interests of the Hankook Farnbacher team.

Finally, the new GTE-Am category will pit four Ferrari F430s (two for AF Corse, one for CRS Racing and one for Kessel Racing) against a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR Imsa Performance.

A contingent of 27 cars will therefore appear on the Castellet circuit on Friday for the official Le Mans Series tests. Unfortunately, Paul-Ricard will not be open to the public for the occasion.

Find the Pescarolo Team column in your AUTOhebdo magazine, on newsstands from Wednesday.