Following on from last week’s announcements of the FIA World Endurance Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans, the official entry list for the European Le Mans Series has been released and features a bumper field of 29 cars.
The LMP2 class features eleven cars including entries from TDS Racing, Greaves Motorsport, Boutsen Ginion Racing, Murphy Prototypes, Sebastien Loeb Racing, Race Performance, Signatech, Jota Sport, DKR Engineering, Morand Racing and Orex Competition.
Team Endurance Racing will run three cars in the LMPC class following on from their recent test.
The LMGTE class features a strong field of Ferrari’s, Porsche’s, and a single Chevrolet run by RAM Racing, AF Corse, JMW Motorsport, IMSA Performance Matmut, Larbre Competition, Prospeed Competition, Autorlando sport and Kessel Racing.
The GTC class sees six a single Lamborghini Gallardo from Kox Racing, two AF Corse fielded Ferrari F458’s, a Porsche 911 GT3 from Autorlando Sport being joined by a solitary Audi R8 LMS with Momo Megatron DF1.
Pierre Fillon, President of the ACO, said: “2013 is an important year after the ACO decided to restart the European Le Mans Series and mandate Le Mans Endurance Management (LMEM) to organise and promote the most important European endurance race series. We are proud to see twenty-nine entries on the grid, which underlines the fantastic potential of the ELMS. I would like to thank the teams for their continued support as we begin the next chapter of endurance racing in Europe.”
Gerard Neveu, Director of Le Mans Endurance Management, said: “We will start the new season with a fantastic grid of twenty-nine cars. We have also received strong interest by other teams looking to race in the ELMS on a race-by-race basis, potentially boosting the grid numbers even further. 2013 is going to be a hard year and we know we will face some very exciting challenges and this is a good start. The five events alongside the FIA WEC (Silverstone), FFSA GT Tour (Imola) and World Series by Renault (Red Bull Ring, Hungaroring, Paul Ricard) will give us the best platform on which to promote the relaunched European Le Mans Series.We look forward to welcoming everyone – teams, drivers, fans, partners – at each of these prestigious and beautiful European circuits.”
The season opens alongside it’s big brother the FIA WEC at Silvestone on 12-13 April, the full calender is below.
12/13 Apr – Silverstone
17/18 May – Imola
19 /20 Jul – Red Bull Ring
13 /14 Sep – Hungaroring
27 /28 Sep – Paul Ricard
