Category: Asian Le Mans Series

Kurtz, Braun lead Crowdstrike to AsLMS title and Le Mans invite

Two invitations to enter the 2024 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours were handed out Sunday after a thrilling climax to the 2023/2024 Asian Le Mans Series season in Abu Dhabi. For Portuguese-flagged, British-run team Algarve Pro Racing, it was a …

Two invitations to enter the 2024 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours were handed out Sunday after a thrilling climax to the 2023/2024 Asian Le Mans Series season in Abu Dhabi.

For Portuguese-flagged, British-run team Algarve Pro Racing, it was a historic weekend with the team’s No. 4 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA, driven by former IMSA GTP driver Colin Braun, Peugeot Sport Hypercar reserve driver Malthe Jakobsen and George Kurtz, sealing the LMP2 titles in dramatic fashion. A bold strategy call led to a surprise victory in race one on Saturday before a seventh-place finish in Sunday evening’s finale finished the job.

As a result, the team has been awarded an invitation to enter the Le Mans 24 Hours in the LMP2 class, adding to its invite earned through winning the 2023 European Le Mans Series LMP2 Championship last year.

Notably, Kurtz has a personal invitation of his own to race at Le Mans after winning IMSA’s Jim Trueman award in 2023, also with Crowdstrike APR.

Elsewhere, Lithuanian Porsche customer team Pure Rxcing’s fairytale 12 months continued when its 911 GT3 R 992 of Alex Malykhin, Klaus Bachler and Joel Sturm took the hotly-contested GT title. This invitation to enter the 24 Hours adds to its invite earned by winning the World Challenge Europe Bronze Cup title and its full-season WEC entry with Manthey in LMGT3 which grants a space on the grid automatically. This means the team could have as many as three cars on the entry for its debut at the event.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Manthey-supported team will utilize its Asian Le Mans invite at La Sarthe. Primarily, the allure of competing in the Asian Le Mans Series was, according to team owner Edgar Kochanovskij, “to practice, stay in shape and work with Manthey” over the winter.

“The philosophy of the team is to pure, true racing,” Kochanovskij said when asked by RACER what its plans were should it win another invitation.

“If I can find a driver lineup that I am happy to put my name on, then yes [we would use the invitation], but I don’t think it will [be very easy] to find talented, passionate, hard-working and motivated Bronze drivers to fill the entry.”

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Swiss team COOL Racing sealed the LMP3 title in the final race, but there is no invitation for the LMP3 class title winner this season. Instead, the team will receive priority when entering the 2024 Le Mans Cup Road To Le Mans support races held during the Le Mans race week for LMP3 and GT3 cars.

The two invitations handed out Sunday add to the nine already awarded before the start of the Asian Le Mans Series season last December. (All entries are subject to final decisions from the ACO Selection Committee.)

This year’s Asian Le Mans Series season had a grid maxed out at 42 cars, plus the return to Sepang for the first time since the pandemic proved to be a hit with the teams, and the title battles in all three classes went down to the wire.

Before the series decamped at the Yas Marina circuit, the Jordanian-flagged, TF Sport-run 99 Racing ORECA LMP2 squad, which featured former F1 driver Nikita Mazepin in its driver line-up, looked firmly in control.

Mazepin, along with Ahmad Al Harthy and WTRAndretti GTP driver Louis Deletraz won two of the three races at Sepang and Dubai heading into the final meeting. They held a 20-point lead in the standings.

The team’s title hopes fell to pieces this weekend after a smorgasbord of misfortune and drama handed Crowdstrike Racing a lifeline, which it grasped with both hands.

In race one, after starting on pole with a changed driver lineup due to an illness for Mazepin, Al Harthy was turned into a spin on lap one, dropping him to dead last. The car then retired in the third hour after a bizarre incident under safety car conditions.

Al Harthy rear-ended the GT title-winning Pure Rxcing Porsche while both cars were avoiding a car in the queue that suddenly braked hard. He was, somewhat controversially, penalized for his role in the incident. The damage to the No. 99, meanwhile, was severe — the car needing a full rebuild around a new tub from AF Corse overnight ahead of Sunday’s four-hour race.

The efforts of the mechanics would be in vain as the car struggled for pace with a shifting issue throughout the race, lost time due to an emergency service stop under the safety car and was forced to serve a stop-go penalty for the race one incident. Ultimately, they came home only 11th overall, handing the title to Crowdstrike Racing by APR.

Audi chasing WEC return with Sainteloc

Audi Sport Customer Racing is pushing hard for a two-car FIA WEC LMGT3 entry with its longstanding French customer Team Sainteloc, RACER has learned. Last week’s Goodyear LMGT3 tyre test entry for Portimao, which was attended by eight prospective …

Audi Sport Customer Racing is pushing hard for a two-car FIA WEC LMGT3 entry with its longstanding French customer Team Sainteloc, RACER has learned.

Last week’s Goodyear LMGT3 tyre test entry for Portimao, which was attended by eight prospective WEC LMGT3 manufacturers, included an R8 LMS GT3 EVO II fitted with newly developed closed-loop torque sensors required to meet LMGT3 regulations.

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There, the car ran on 2024 Goodyear tyres for the first time with senior Audi technical staff on hand, factory driver Christopher Haase and as well as Sainteloc team director Frederic Thalamy, its owner Sebastien Chetail and additional engineering staff from their outfit.

RACER asked Thalamy if its presence in Portugal was part of its preparations for the 2023/24 Asian Le Mans Series season. There, Sainteloc hopes to win the GT class title and secure a Le Mans invite. This is because over the summer, prior to the Asian Le Mans entry list being revealed, Thalamy described that effort as the team’s one and only chance to get to Le Mans with the R8. “After next year it’s finished,” he told RACER.

However, Sainteloc’s plans have developed and now extend further than an Asian Le Mans Series campaign. The French team, with the full support of Audi, was keen to test on Goodyear tires with a car that meets the 2024 regulations because it is planning to run in the full FIA WEC season, not just at Le Mans.

Thus, it opted to run exclusively on Goodyear rubber in Portugal, unlike AF Corse which turned laps with both Goodyear LMGT3 tires and Michelin’s Asian Le Mans Series GT product to prepare for customer entries in both ACO championships.

“We are here to achieve something, to get into the FIA WEC,” Thalamy told RACER. “It is WEC or nothing. Everybody is pushing very hard to get entries, we are pushing for two, we would like two cars, but we would take one.”

The feedback RACER received from Thalamy and Haase at the test was overwhelmingly positive. Thalamy was keen to comment on how impressed he was with the level of service Goodyear provided, and Haase was hugely complimentary of the tyres. “I have been really surprised, the car worked straight away out of the box. I was so happy with the level of grip and feedback. It was joyous,” Haase said.

If successful, it would mark a return to the World Championship for the German brand for the first time since its LMP1 Hybrid R18 program came to a close in 2016. The hope is that Audi’s previous loyalty to the ACO during the LMP1 era, plus Sainteloc’s level of ambition to compete, will be enough to secure places on the grid.

However, LMGT3 in 2024 is going to be oversubscribed in both the FIA WEC and ELMS (and Sainteloc has no plans to compete in the ACO’s European series). With no Hypercar program or customer team currently competing in the FIA WEC, Audi’s current plan doesn’t fit either of the publicly stated selection criteria, which will give priority to OEMs in Hypercar and teams that have been loyal to the FIA WEC.

If the WEC’s full-season entry cap is 36 cars and the split between the two classes is 18-18, then Audi, like Mercedes-AMG, would appear to be on the outside looking in. This is because Aston Martin (Prodrive/Heart of Racing), BMW (WRT), Corvette (TF Sport) Ferrari (AF Corse), Ford (Proton), Lamborghini (Iron Lynx), Lexus (ASP), McLaren (United) and Porsche (Manthey) are all seeking two-car entries.

Nevertheless, Audi Sport is pushing hard to be a part of the FIA WEC next season, despite its plan to scale back its customer sport program significantly from 2024 onwards.

RACER understands that it will provide both factory driving and engineering talent for Sainteloc’s WEC bid, and is fully supportive of Sainteloc and Attempto Racing’s Asian Le Mans Series plans.