This weekend's 4 Hours of Silverstone marks the start of the 2019/20 FIA World Endurance Championship. In a four-part series, Motorsport Week takes a look at all of the four classes in detail. Who are the title favorites? Who will spring a surprise? In part two: we look at LMP2, which enjoys a host of teams jumping up from the European Le Mans Series. Will they be able to spring a surprise, or will last season's top teams dominate again?
For starters, there isn’t much of a question about which car is going to be fastest. It’s fairly certain that the ORECA 07-Gibson will continue the run of dominance it had during the Super Season, with 7 out of 8 teams now running an ORECA chassis. This does include Signatech Alpine’s rebranded A470, but for all intents and purposes, that too is an ORECA.
The French squad, now with oil firm Elf as their title sponsor, comes into Season 8 riding about as high as Toyota in LMP1. The team won class honours in Le Mans in both 2018 and 2019, and won both the drivers and teams championship. Andre Negrao is the only driver who’s been retained from last year. Pierre Thiriet stepped away after Le Mans, while Nicolas Lapierre moved to newcomers Cool Racing.
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In their place are Pierre Raguet, who joins from Duqueine Engineering, while Toyota reserve driver Thomas Laurent replaces Lapierre. Laurent’s involvement could land the team in a spot of bother later this season, as both Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley’s Formula E duties could clash with their Toyota commitments. This could mean a call-up for Laurent to stand in, leaving Signatech Alpine to search for a temporary replacement of their own.
Two of Signatech Alpine’s main title rivals have left their line-ups unchanged. Jackie Chan DC Racing came closest last season, and have retained Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Jordan King to mount another challenge for LMP2’s top crown. Spa race winners Anthony Davidson, Pastor Maldonado and Roberto Gonzalez jumped ship together from Dragonspeed and were supposed to take on the full season together, but Maldonado announced on Friday that he would not be joining the team. JOTA Sport then announced Antonio Felix da Costa as his replacement.
The only other line-up that remains unchanged is that of Racing Team Nederland, who will be returning with Nyck de Vries, Giedo van der Garde and Frits van Eerd, while Job van Uitert has been brought in fill in at Silverstone and Shanghai. The only major change in the Dutch outfit is that they too have now switched to ORECA.
Finally, the grid features no fewer than four teams stepping up from the European Le Mans Series. Cool Racing, High Class Racing and Cetilar Racing (the only team running a Dallara chassis) all come over, and are joined by a team that could immediately prove to be very serious competition: United Autosports.
The Anglo-American operation has proven a force to be reckoned with in sportscars in recent memory, and with a last-minute and somewhat controversial switch to ORECA, the team could very well be a serious contender up front. Their line-up of Paul di Resta, Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque is a good mix of speed and experience, and with the team’s experience in running an LMP2 squad, one shouldn’t count them out.
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