Silverstone ELMS Weekend Notebook

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

***Friday’s pair of Free Practice sessions saw mixed conditions, with rain in the morning and a damp, and drying track in the afternoon. The only major incident of the day came in FP1 when Tristan Gommendy crashed the Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 05 Nissan. The car returned for the afternoon session.

***Damien Faulkner has landed a last-minute drive with Murphy Prototypes this weekend, alongside Shaun Balfe and Sean Doyle in the team’s Oreca 03R Nissan. Michael Cullen, meanwhile, has been added to the team’s Ginetta LMP3 car alongside Americans Tony Ave and Doug Petersen.

***Ave told Sportscar365 that the Ave-Riley AR-2 LMP3 car could debut at the next ELMS round at Imola in May, with a final decision to be made in the next week. The car has been delayed after having to make revisions to the splitter, roof and windshield prior to its homologation.

***Defending ELMS LMP2 champion Bjorn Wirdheim is subbing for Olivier Pla this weekend in the Krohn Racing Ligier JS P2 Nissan. Wirdheim joins full-season drivers Tracy Krohn and Nic Jonsson in the Greaves Motorsport-run entry.

***Pla is slated to complete the remainder of the ELMS season with the team, but will also not take part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans due to his commitments with Ford. A replacement driver for Le Mans has not yet been named.

***Legendary race engineer Ricardo DiVila has returned to Greaves this year, after working on the now-defunct Nissan LMP1 program.

***A handful of ELMS teams are still on the holdout as reserve entrants for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, including JMW Motorsport, which is the first reserve. Courage (SMP Racing), Pegasus Racing, OAK Racing, DragonSpeed and Team AAI were also listed as reserves, as of the latest entry list on April 1.

***United Autosports was announced Friday as the sole UK agent for Onroak Automotive, with the Anglo-American team selling and supporting LMP3 and CN cars from its shop in Leeds. The deal does not include Onroak’s LMP2 car.

***Mike Guasch, who makes his ELMS LMP3 debut with United Autosports this weekend, will soon take delivery of his own Ligier JS P3 in California. The former ALMS PC champion told Sportscar365 that he expects to use the car for testing and promotional purposes. It’s believed to be the first Ligier JS P3 to be delivered to the U.S.

***Click Here to download the spotter’s guide for the ELMS season-opening Four Hours of Silverstone, featuring all starters for tomorrow’s race, which gets underway at 2:30 p.m. local time. Live coverage will be available at europeanlemansseries.com.

Laurent Mercier contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John