Strakka secures WEC and Le Mans 24 Hour entries

Feb 5, 2012

Strakka Racing has been officially granted entry into both the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and Le Mans 24 Hour race by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), rubber-stamping the Silverstone-based team’s passion to revive the tradition of a small privateer all-British sportscar team taking on the giant manufacturers in some of motorsport’s biggest and most famous races.

The team’s brand new Honda Performance Development ARX-03a race car, which will race for outright victory in the premier LMP1 category, will this year carry #21 and be driven by an unchanged team driver line-up consisting of Nick Leventis (London), Danny Watts (Buckingham) and Jonny Kane (Northern Ireland/Thame). It is the same talented trio of drivers that took Strakka Racing to LMP2 victory and 5th overall at Le Mans in 2010.

Both the inaugural WEC and 80th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours race have received very strong entries. Thirty cars will compete in the WEC (nine LMP1) and 56 cars have been accepted for Le Mans (15 LMP1), with a further nine on a reserve list.

In addition to Honda, which powers Strakka Racing’s 3.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engined HPD ARX-03a, other manufacturers represented on the grid include Audi, Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Lotus, Corvette, Nissan and Morgan.

To ensure a level playing field between the petrol engined normally aspirated and turbo-deisel engined cars, the ACO and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) have introduced new equivalences regulations, based on data acquired at last year’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans.

The opening round of the WEC is the Sebring 12 Hours in Flordia on 17 March, while the Le Mans 24 Hours takes place over the weekend of 16-17 June.

Piers Phillips, Team Principal and Technical Director: “We firmly believe that we have the package to consistently compete at the very highest level in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship and at Le Mans. We don’t underestimate the challenge that’s ahead, but we are confident that we have a strong driver line-up, an experienced team of highly motivated professionals and in the HPD ARX-03a a car that can challenge for pole positions and, given the right circumstances, race wins. The opening race at Sebring is only six weeks away, so pre-season testing will be limited, and the last half of the WEC season contains a gruelling sequence of races in Brazil, Bahrain, Japan and China that will see several key members of the team away from home for over two months. It’s a challenge we are all very excited about and we certainly aren’t planning to go anywhere this year and race to finish second. We’ll be aiming for the top spot of the podium and doing all we can to achieve the very best results we can.”

2012 FIA World Endurance Championship
LMP1
#1 Audi Sport Team Joest (Audi R18 Hybrid)
#2 Audi Sport Team Joest (Audi R18 Hybrid)
#7 Toyota Racing (Toyota TS 030 Hybrid)
#12 Rebellion Racing (Lola B12/60 Toyota)
#13 Rebellion Racing (Lola B12/60 Toyota)
#15 Oak Racing (OAK Pescarolo Judd)
#16 Pescarolo Team (Pescarolo 03 Judd)
#21 Strakka Racing (HPD ARX-03a)
#22 JRM (HPD ARX-03a)
LMP2
#23 Signatech Nissan (Oreca 03 Nissan)
#24 Oak Racing (Morgan Judd)
#25 ADR-Delta (Oreca 03 Nissan)
#28 Gulf Racing Middle East (Lola B12/80 Nissan)
#29 Gulf Racing Middle East (Lola B12/80 Nissan)
#31 Lotus (Lola B12/80 Lotus)
#41 Greaves Motorsport (Zytek Z11SN Nissan)
#44 Starworks Motorsport (HPD ARX-03b)
#49 Pecom Racing (Oreca 03 Nissan)
GTE Pro
#51 AF Corse (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#59 Luxury Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#71 AF Corse (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#77 Team Felbermayr Proton (Porsche 997 GT3 RSR)
#97 Aston Martin Racing (Aston Martin Vantage)
GTE Am
#50 Larbre Competition (Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1)
#55 JWA-Avila (Porsche 997 GT3 RSR)
#57 Krohn Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#58 Luxury Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#61 AF Corse (Ferrari 458 Italia)
#70 Larbre Competition (Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1)
#88 Team Felbermayr Proton (Porsche 997 GT3 RSR)

2012 Le Mans 24 Hour entry list (LMP1 category only)
#1 Audi Sport Team Joest (Audi R18 Hybrid)
#2 Audi Sport Team Joest (Audi R18 Hybrid)
#3 Audi Sport Team Joest (Audi R18)
#4 Audi Sport North America (Audi R18)
#7 Toyota Racing (Toyota TS 030 Hybrid)
#8 Toyota Racing (Toyota TS 030 Hybrid)
#12 Rebellion Racing (Lola B12/60 Toyota)
#13 Rebellion Racing (Lola B12/60 Toyota)
#15 Oak Racing (OAK Pescarolo Judd)
#16 Pescarolo Team (Pescarolo 03 Judd)
#17 Pescarolo Team (Pescarolo 03 Judd)
#18 Dyson Racing Team (Lola B12/60)
#19 Dyson Racing Team (Lola B12/60)
#21 Strakka Racing (HPD ARX-03a)
#22 JRM (HPD ARX-03a)