Following its participation in last weekend’s IMSA Rolex 24 endurance classic at Daytona, the attentions of the DragonSpeed team now turn to its second season of European LMP2 prototype competition, with a two-car program for both the ACO European Le Mans Series and its first-ever attempt at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.
DragonSpeed’s 2016 driving squad of Henrik Hedman, Nicolas Lapierre, and Ben Hanley will return to the ELMS in a new ORECA 07-Gibson, run from the team’s base at Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France. Hanley’s off-season promotion to Gold status in the FIA driver rankings means that the minimum drive time for Bronze pilot Henrik Hedman will double to 90 minutes of the standard four-hour race duration.
“This isn’t just what we have to do, it’s what we want to do,” said team boss Elton Julian. “We get to keep Nico and Ben in our team for the ELMS, while Henrik is pumped to take advantage of the extra seat time to continue honing his speed and racecraft.”
With Lapierre committed to the Signatech Alpine team at Le Mans – with whom he won the LMP2 class in 2015 and 2016 – the search is on for a third driver to join Hedman and Hanley at La Sarthe.
The stablemate to DragonSpeed’s number 21 machine in the ELMS and at Le Mans will be a second ORECA entered by G-Drive Racing, who claimed the 2016 ELMS championship with two wins and four podium finishes. Drivers will be announced at a later date.
G-Drive Racing principal and 2015 FIA WEC LMP2 class champion Roman Rusinov said, “I’m delighted that DragonSpeed will be supporting the defense of our ELMS title and operating our Le Mans entry this year, as they are one of the very best teams in LMP2.”
“The expansion of our program for 2017 is just reward for the amazing dedication and skill of the entire DragonSpeed crew as well as Henrik’s confidence in us over the last four years,” Julian said. “I can hardly believe it myself, but with two cars confirmed for the ELMS and Le Mans, I can say that we’re right where we always wanted to be going into our tenth season of racing.”
