OAK Racing has new partners in the 2014 Asian Le Mans Series

This morning in the Technoparc des 24 Heures , Ho- Pin Tung and David Cheng visited the OAK Racing team with which they won the drivers’ and teams’ titles in the 2013 Asian Le Mans Series. The two Chinese drivers came to have a look round the workshops in which the Morgan LM P2 that they drove to victory for OAK Racing Team Total in the Zhuhai and Sepang rounds of the series held in Asia.

The Sarthe team, boosted by their success in the first Asian Le Mans Series, is working hard to reinforce its partnerships to repeat this feat in the Denis Lambert 2014 Asian challenge. Jacques Nicolet’s team would again like to have a 100 percent Asian LM P2 driver line-up and is hoping to continue with Ho-Pin Tung and David Cheng: discussions are on-going.

To support them in their second attempt to conquer the Asian title, OAK Racing is delighted to announce the arrival of two new top-level partners: Sarthe Développement and Le Mans Développement.

This morning Jean-Jacques Foignet , Sarthe Développement general manager, and Jean-Marie Macouin , Le Mans Développement general manager, came to the Le Mans-based team’s workshops to announce this partnership.

This is what Sarthe Développement and Le Mans Développement said when announcing their partnership with OAK Racing: “ Sarthe Développement , Le Mans Développement and OAK Racing have joined forces to prospect the Asian and Chinese markets and to strengthen the visibility of the Sarthe and the town of Le Mans.” The following objectives have been fixed :

• Attract Asian investors to the Sarthe, ,

• Promote Le Mans and Sarthe talent/know-how in Asia,

• Promote our department as a destination for tourism that is exploding (100 million Chinese tourists throughout the world).

The development agencies have decided to use the Sarthe team OAK Racing, which knows Asia very well and which is taking part in the Asian Le Mans Series organised by the ACO, to offer sites around the Le Mans circuit to potential Asian investors interested by motor sport - but not exclusively. Races attract numerous deciders and to be able to meet them in this exclusive environment after assessing their needs is a real vector of differentiation in this ruthless territorial competition.

The multiplication of operations of Chinese investment in European countries has been in constant progression over the last ten years. In 2012, France was the leading European destination for in-coming investment from China that created jobs, and the country took eighth place in the classification of foreign investors in France (Source AFII).

With OAK Racing as ambassador and the Le Mans label as spearhead, our territory has some very persuasive arguments to take advantage of this fledgling growth of Asian investment in France.

Jacques Nicolet, OAK Racing President: “I’m delighted that the involvement and the investment of OAK Racing in Asia since 2008 are bearing fruit. Our first involvement was behind the first participation of a Chinese driver, Cong Fu Cheng, in the Le Mans 24 Hours, which was crowned with a podium finish! In 2009, this was followed by our participation in the Asian races organised by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest .

The 2013 drivers’ and teams’ titles in the Asian Le Mans Series are a marvellous fulfillment of this involvement. That this success gave Sarthe Développement and Le Mans Développement the desire to accompany us in this step in 2014 is for the whole team, the race squad OAK Racing and the constructor Onroak Automotive, a real source of satisfaction.

The decision of Sarthe Développement and Le Mans Développement to put their trust in the performance of a Le Mans-based company as a vector of development validates our determination to implant ourselves in Asia. I’m convinced that together we’re going to do a great job and that we’ll see the fallout very soon.”

OAK Racing