RD Limited “More Prepared” in Year Two, But “Not Favorite”

RD Limited is “more prepared” for its second year in LMP2 competition as it prepares to tackle the upcoming Asian Le Mans Series, although team owner Romain Dumas has stressed it is not “the favorite at all” despite its 2024-25 title near miss.

The Ales, France-based team made an immediate impact on its endurance racing debut last year, winning on debut at Sepang and finishing runner-up in the standings with the No. 30 Oreca 07 Gibson shared by Fred Poordad, James Allen and Tristan Vautier.

However, after missing out on a coveted auto-invite to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as a spot on the European Le Mans Series entry list, RD has not contested any LMP2 race since the Asian Le Mans Series Abu Dhabi season finale ten months ago.

Looking ahead to the 2025-26 season that begins this weekend at Sepang, Dumas played down the team’s prospects of beating the more established teams to the title, pointing out that the LMP2 field has expanded to 16 cars, up from last term’s ten.

“The competition is for sure higher than last year,” Dumas told Sportscar365. “I think we are more prepared than last year, but for sure the others have not been sleeping.

“I don’t think we are the favorite at all. We haven’t done any racing since the end of the previous season, while the other guys are racing all year. And our Bronze driver, Poordad, he is a ‘real’ Bronze, he is 61 years old.

“I think there are five or six cars that will be there. And then it will depend on things like when the safety car comes out. It’s a short championship — last year, we had one puncture, and boom, we lost the championship.

“We know it will be difficult. But we want to take the challenge and see where we are. Last year was almost a perfect season, and we’ll do the best job we can again.

“I am much more confident than I was last year, when we came with 80 percent of our team being completely new to endurance racing.”

Although RD, which also has programs in rallying and historic racing, has not raced its Oreca since February, it has embarked on an extensive testing program during the lengthy off-season that Dumas estimates spanned ten to 15 days.

Vautier and Allen both took turns driving alongside Poordad, with two-time Le Mans winner Dumas himself getting behind the wheel for two days.

While some tests were conducted with ELMS teams present, Dumas highlighted the fact the No. 30 largely stuck to the Michelin tires that are used in the Asian Le Mans Series made it hard to benchmark the team against its Goodyear-shod rivals.

“We tested more or less two days a month,” said the Frenchman. “Fred was driving all the time, because at his age, not driving full-time is a big disadvantage, so we have to keep him in a good window, let’s say, and also to improve the car.

“When we tested at Silverstone, we were with the ELMS teams, and also in the last test at Barcelona, but we were not using the same tires, so it was quite difficult to compare.

“But at Silverstone we also tried Goodyears to see where we were.”

Dumas added he expects RD to miss out on a place in the ELMS again this season.

“For us, this is the only championship we can do,” he said. “We know that we cannot compete in any other series in LMP2, because everything is full.

“We cannot do more, it is not in our hands. We are a little bit at a dead end. So we have to try and get a good result to go to Le Mans. That’s it.”