By Sam Tickell
Couresy of the American Le Mans Series
With the 24 Hours of Le Mans racing ever closer, FeedMeSportsCars is looking at the different categories to see the favorites and who may just pull a surprise.
This issue looks at the GT1 category, its competitors – the favorites and who may just pull a surprise.
2005 proved to be a great fight between the new Aston Martin DBR9 and the Corvette C6R. It was a hard fought race but the Corvette won out in the end.
The other car that was expected to fight for victory – the Ferrari, had a disappointing race with the lead squads dropping out early.
But they are all back and all looking for glory in 2006.
Joining Aston Martin, Corvette and Ferrari are the Saleen and Lamborghini entries. Like last year however the fight for victory is expected to be between Aston and Corvette.
This year there will be three Corvette entries. Two will be the latest C6R cars run as a factory entry. As usual the driver lineup for these cars is first class.
Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell, Massimiliano Papis are running the second car and the lead car which is probably the favorite to win is being driven by Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta, Jan Magnussen.
This latter combination won last year and has a mammoth amount of experience behind them and will be extremely hard to beat.
The other Corvette entry is the older C5R car run by 2006 Dakar winner Luc Alphand. This car will be driven by Alphand, trying to win two of the classic races in one year. French GT winner , Jérôme Policand and Patrice Goueslard finish off the Corvette entries
Courtesy of John Brooks
The main challenge to the Corvette’s will come from the Aston Martins. This year they will be running four cars, two factory cars, one run by BMS and one by Russian Age Racing.
The lineup for the factory cars is as strong as Corvette’s. Stephane Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy, Stephane Ortelli will be in the lead car with Thomas Enge, Darren Turner, Andrea Piccini being in the other car.
After having poor luck last year, having issues towards the end of the race, Aston Martin will look to reverse that this year. They have instilled the help of a certain James Bond, and will run the number ‘007’ to help them defeat the Corvettes.
The other cars will also be challenging for victory. GT front runners BMS will also be in the hunt for victory with their lineup of Italian GT aces.
Russian Age Racing also has its stars including David Brabham, who was a factory driver last year.
Coutesy of FIA GT/DPPI
Ferrari are back this year with their Ferrari 550 model and looking to challenge for a surprise victory.
This year they are entering three cars. One each for Labre Competition, Russian Age Racing and Convers Team Menx.
Labre should pose the strongest challenge, having run Ferrari’s for many years and having a very strong team. The driving team is led by Gabriele Gardel – winner of the FIA GT Championship in 2005. He is partnered by Patrick Bornhauser, Jean - Luc Blanchemain.
Russian Age Racing is in the odd position of running two different cars – a Ferrari and an Aston Martin. This team could pull a surprise but is not expected to challenge for victory.
Convers Team Menx have also run Ferrari’s for a many seasons and have an experienced driver lineup to match the experience with the car. The team is led by Peter Kox – an able leader but he maybe let down by his Russain teammates - Robert Pergl, Alexei Vasiliev.
Coutesy of the American Le Mans Series
Saleen are also back with their new S7R model run by the ACEMCO team. This ALMS team has had a strong run in the early ALMS season but it would be hard to beat the Corvette’s and Aston Martins.
Nevertheless, the team will hope to run from the success of the European campaign of the Saleen cars for a strong challenge by drivers, Terry Borcheller, Jonny Mowlem, Christian Fittipaldi.
Courtesy of FIA GT/DPPI
Finally there is the Lamborghini Murchielago R GT run by the Japan Lamborghini Owners Club. This car is not expected to run the distance with many predicting that it will be the first retirement of the race.
This car in much improved from its race a few years ago but still is not winning international events or fully competitive over long distances.
Still this will not deter Marco Apicella, Koji Yamanishi, Yasutaka Hinoi from pushing for Le Mans glory.
So there it is, a quick rundown of the GT1 grid for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans.
So who will win the GT1 title? It will be a close run race, hopefully even more exciting than last year. But we will have to wait and see to see if Corvette can win again. Or if Aston Martin can take a historic victory. Or will Ferrari, Saleen or Lamborghini pull a surprise. Only time will tell.
But in the meantime look out for FeedMeSportsCars look at the other classes in the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans and keep checking back for more up to date news and views of all things of sportscar racing.