Panis Barthez Competition heads to the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans full of hope anticipation that the team can achieve much needed success this year on their third attempt of taking on the French endurance classic.
The French squad is composed of Ex-Formula 1 driver Will Stevens, experienced French sports car drivers of Timothe Buret and Julian Canal, who will be joined by Tristan Vautier as their reserve driver for the 24-Hour race.
Team Boss, Oliver Panis, has ambitious goals for their third attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and said: “Our goal this year is clear: for the durability of the team, we must have results this season and for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, we put everything in place to get on the podium in LMP2.
“Given the quality of the technical team of Simon and Sarah Abadie, the level of the pilots, my associates and I are motivated as ever because we know that our future depends on it. ”
That puts a certain amount of pressure on the team, but Panis is confident in the team that they can extract the necessary performance to achieve the desired result, saying, “We have a line-up of which I am particularly proud: with Will Stevens, Timothé Buret and Julien Canal, we combine experience with motivation, and during the test day last Sunday, we set up a real work plan.”
Therefore, he believes that they have a brilliant crew, fabulous drivers; all of whom work as a homogeneous unit. The close-knit nature of the squad is one of the key ingredients to their success this year, with the Panis Barthez Competition family all very closely aligned ahead of the big race in just one week.
Panis also added that:
“We discovered the new “Le Mans kit” from Ligier and had to get as much data as possible to prepare the race and transmit our information to Michelin so that their team could adapt to this current aerodynamic kit by putting aside pure performance and I thank them for their investment.”
This should put them in good stead ahead of the big race, and they will continue to fettle and work on extracting the maximum out of the aerodynamic package to achieve the best result next Sunday afternoon at the Circuit de La Sarthe.
