After painfully watching his team disperse last year, unable to compete in the LMS, Henri Pescarolo has been on a mission to revive the glory days of his famed organization. Well, that challenge is one step closer to being completed. The return to team headquarters in the Le Mans Technoparc at the beginning of the year brought with it excitement as the crew reunited to begin preparations for a racing season. This week, the LMP team one-uped that by confirming its drivers, program and engine choice.
The Le Mans 24 Hours will be graced with a Pescarolo Sport Judd V10 prototype piloted by Emmanuel Collard and Christophe Tinseau. Both drivers are very familiar faces with the team and the revisitation, even after a one year hiatus, “felt strangely normal” according to Mr. Pescarolo. The team will race in five rounds of the Le Mans Series this season after being offered the opportunity to keep the Judd V10 for another year by the ACO.
Collard, who gave the Pescarolo Sport team its first and second consecutive LMS championships in 2005 and 2006, has been kept busy racing for Porsche and Corvette in 2009 and 2010; however, he has done so only in the GT class. Of the return to a full season in an LMP car, Collard says: “I am really happy to race in a prototype again and especially to work with Henri's team again, who I've known for so long. To take part in the development of an LMP1 with Claude Galopin is always an exciting experience.”
His teammate, Christophe Tinseau, who has been a Pescarolo regular since 2007, enjoyed his last prototype drive at the Okayama 1000 in November 2009 before the team sat out the 2010 calendar. He has since stayed sharp by competing in France’s Racecar Series – Elite series. “It is a return that I hoped for and that I waited for impatiently. I am also pleased to rejoin the team with whom I had so many successes. Sharing the Pescarolo-Judd with Manu Collard is an exciting project.”
The chassis of choice will be the Pescarolo-Judd in its 2010 version which never raced in LMP1, thus concealing its potential from the world. Henri Pescarolo is certain that his entry will be competetive. “The choice of drivers demonstrates our ambitions: to win the Le Mans Series and to get a good result in the 24 Hours.”
