Testing report
European Le Mans Paul Ricard March test
KCMG Oreca 05 shines in Paul Ricard testing
SMP Racing topped the charts with the old Oreca-Nissan LMP2 on a fresh set of Michelin rubber.
Sam Smith
Edited: Mar 4, 2015, 8:58 PM
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Winter testing continued apace for many of the leading European based LMP2 and GT teams at Paul Ricard in Southern France this week.
KCMG, G-Drive Racing, Oak Racing, SMP Racing, Murphy Prototypes and Massive Motorsport were all in action this week in what will be final testing prior to the official ELMS test on 23/24 March and then the FIA WEC ‘Prologue’ test later that week on 27/28 March.
Fruitful test for KCMG Oreca
The new Oreca 05 broke cover with the KCMG squad giving their chassis its first miles on Monday. Regular drivers Matt Howson and Richard Bradley got acquainted with the car on Tuesday and continued putting valuable miles on the car today.
Motorsport.com can reveal that they completed over 200 laps of the last couple of days and Sarrazin set a best lap of 1m47.9s on Monday. The car will remain at the ORECA base in the South of France this week before undergoing its homologation and then returning to the Ricard track for the official FIA WEC test at the end of the month.
G-Drive Racing continued to test their brace of Ligier-Nissan cars which were run by Onroak at the test. The team is known to have had Roman Rusinov at the wheel. Oak Racing was also in attendance at the test with the Ligier they have entered in the full FIA WEC this season.
Murphy evaluate potential ELMS drivers
Murphy Prototypes took the opportunity to test a variety of drivers in their Oreca-Nissan today. Karun Chandhok initially ran in the familiar green LMP2 car yesterday before GP3 driver Ryan Cullen, US racer Mark Patterson and young British driver Michael Lyons all got seat time today. Lyons had previously driven the car last August at Snetterton. The teams recent signing Nathaneal Berthon was also running in the car today.
SMP Racing arrived at Paul Ricard to test today with Mikhail Aleshin running one of the old Oreca-Nissan LMP2 cars. The Russian entered car is believed to have set the quickest time of the day on Wednesday with a 1m46.1s as it did a succession of short runs on what are believed to be new soft Michelin rubber.
The Pro Algarve Racing team were initially due to attend the test but were not present at the track.
New Danish team - Massive Motorsport ran Kristian Poulsen, Casper Elgaard and Simon Moller in a distinctively ‘Danish flag’ liveried Aston Martin Vantage GT3 which will run in the GTC class this season.
Motorsport.com will have more reaction from participants at the test tomorrow.
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