IMSA – Team Penske at the start of Petit Le Mans

La entry list published yesterday did not mention the presence of Team Penske at the 20th edition of the Petit Le Mans, next week. But the Mooresville team will be present at the start of the final of theIMSA SportsCar Championship with an Oreca 07 entrusted to the trio Helio Castroneves-Juan Pablo Montoya-simon pagenaud, in accordance with what AUTOhebdo revealed to you in preview last June (see Ah n°2118).

« We've been thinking about taking part in this race for a while, but we wanted to make sure we could have our drivers test at Road Atlanta before making our commitment official, as this track is very fast and these cars are very different. single-seatersIndyCar, explains Team Cindric, the president of Team Penske. Unfortunately, this was confirmed in the most difficult way possible, since we had to rebuild a car in its entirety after an accident that occurred last week in testing. Oreca did everything necessary to ensure that we had all the equipment we needed as they understood how important this race was to us in anticipation of the debut of our Acura ARX-05s (based on the 07. Editor’s note) at the next 24 Hours of Daytona. »

It is indeed an Oreca 07 that the men of “The Captain” will be fielding in Georgia. But with such a trio, they are not coming to make up the numbers. “ Juan has participated in the majority of tryouts since we announced him as one of our four starters next year, Cindric continued. We also wanted to get the other drivers into the program as soon as possible. Helio and Simon have good experience with prototypes and at Road Atlanta it was natural for us to enlist them for Petit Le Mans. »

As a reminder, Helio Castroneves could compete in the entire 2018 campaign, while Simon Pagenaud is expected to take part in the long races.