Le Mans Friday Notebook

***Scrutineering for the 24 Hours of Le Mans began on Friday, with 39 of this year’s 62 cars passing the technical and administrative checks in the Place de la Republique. Among the cars to feature were the two BMW M Hybrid V8s, the two Peugeot 9X8s, all four Cadillac V-Series.Rs (including Wayne Taylor Racing and Action Express Racing), the two Aston Martin Valkyries and the two Alpine A424s.

***Proton Competition’s pair of Ford Mustang GT3s, the three Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, including AWA’s one-off entry, and the three Iron Lynx-entered Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos were among the other star attractions of the day.

***The clash between the Le Mans test day and this weekend’s DTM round at Zandvoort only affects three drivers this time around: Rene Rast (BMW M Team WRT), Jack Aitken (Action Express Racing) and Jules Gounon (Alpine). All three were absent as their respective teams passed through scrutineering on Friday.

***Sportscar365 understands that a chartered plane will transport Aitken and Gounon from Zandvoort to Le Mans on Saturday afternoon after the first race at the Dutch track, and then back again in time to contest the second DTM race at 4:30 p.m. local time after turning laps at the Circuit de la Sarthe during the morning session.

***Rast, meanwhile, will skip test day entirely. Any driver that has raced at Le Mans since 2020 is not required to participate.

***Renger van der Zande hinted that he could be at the wheel of a LMP2 car in next month’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, which will again not feature GTP machinery. The Dutchman was in Tower Motorsports’ entry in last year’s race due to a clash with the FIA World Endurance Championship race in Sao Paulo for Charlie Eastwood, a same situation that will force Sebastien Bourdais out of the Tower entry this time around.

***Van der Zande makes his debut with United Autosports this weekend, sharing the team’s No. 22 Oreca with Pietro Fittipaldi and David Heinemeier Hansson.

***He said: “It’s the biggest name in LMP2 for many years. There’s a great organization behind it. I was very happily surprised about the atmosphere. It’s a real group of real racers. I raced in England in 2009 [in British Formula 3] and the British, how they run the team and how it’s quite in a simple way but very effective. That’s how the Americans also run their race teams and I felt at home straight away, so it’s a great opportunity to get to know another team, Richard Dean’s team, and it’s great to be part of it.”

***Colin Braun revealed that his link-up with Nielsen Racing came in part due to the team’s technical director Gary Davies, who had worked with Braun at Meyer Shank Racing in 2023 as the team’s replacement race engineer following IMSA’s suspension of Ryan McCarthy following the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

***Braun said: “I had previously known Naveen (Rao) and then in 2023, our race engineer on the GTP car was Gary Davies and he’s a technical director at Nielsen. Just having those couple of prior relationships, obviously, Gary and I got along really well and worked together well, so yeah, it was kind of an easy choice to go that way, for sure.”

***Sportscar365 understands that further details on the ‘Chip Hart Racing’ livery on the No. 90 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R of Klaus Bachler, Loek Hartog and Antares Au will be released in the coming days, potentially as part of a deal with Porsche and Formula 1 in the promotion of the upcoming major motion picture ‘F1’ starring Brad Pitt.

***Au told Sportscar365: “The protagonist raced a Porsche at Daytona, did well, then moved onto Formula 1. We are all debating as to actually is Chip Hart. But from the name, I suppose he’s the team principal. We’re all fighting as to who’s actually Sonny Hayes. Right now it’s the question! We’re channeling our inner Sonny Hayes right now.”

***Au revealed that he gave up his Nürburgring 24 drive for this year after securing the auto-invite for Le Mans via winning the Asian Le Mans Series GT title. “I was originally signed up for it. I think last year’s win wasn’t exactly real; nine hours is not 24. But as much as we’re all happy, I cannot do Le Mans, Nürburgring and Spa 24 back-to-back-to-back, so I had to back out of it.”

***AWA Racing’s Lars Kern, Matt Bell, and Orey Fidani arrived at Place de la Republique wearing the Rolex Daytona wrist watches they earned in their January GTD class victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona alongside Marvin Kirchhoefer. Bell and Kern told Sportscar365 that this was an intentional decision made by all three drivers ahead of the team’s Le Mans debut and its first race outing outside of North America.

***In a rules clarification, it was confirmed that LMP2 cars will not be required to use the new-for-2025 digital display panels, which are mandatory for Hypercar and LMGT3 class runners. Instead, the LMP2s will continue to utilize the traditional ‘leader lights’ system.

***With this year’s change to a two-stage Hyperpole format, the regulations have been modified regarding which drivers are eligible to participate. In all classes, it has been determined that the driver that participates in the second phase of Hyperpole, referred to as ‘H2’ in the regulations, must not be the same as the opening phase (‘H1’).

***In LMGT3, the usual rule for the Bronze driver to participate in first qualifying stands, but there is no requirement to use a driver of a particular grading in either Hyperpole session, as long as the above rule is adhered to.

***A notable addition to the supplementary regulations expressly prohibits the use of the so-called blending lane in the pit lane for overtaking. This follows the controversy during the previous WEC round at Spa, where Ferrari orchestrated a swap of its cars in the pit lane via use of the blending lane on its way to victory, picking up only a reprimand.

***The full ruling reads: “Except in special circumstances or unless otherwise specified in the applied regulations, the pit lane must be used, in complete safety, exclusively to allow cars to stop in their dedicated stopping area. In particular, it is not allowed to use the pit lane for the purposes of overtaking or to stop elsewhere than in its dedicated stopping area.” Any penalties for non-compliance will be at the stewards’ discretion.

***A change has been made to the driver compensation weight ballast rules, as the 78 kg reference weight now applies in qualifying as well as the race. At Spa last month, it only applied in the race. The previous 82 kg figure is still in use for LMGT3 in all sessions.

***Scrutineering continues in downtown Le Mans on Saturday morning, with the three Ferrari 499Ps, the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport cars and Toyota’s two GR010 Hybrids among the cars set to feature.

***This will be followed by the now-traditional ‘Roulage’ parade, beginning at 3 p.m. local time, in which 19 cars will take to the city streets. All eight Hypercar manufacturers will be represented, as well as all nine LMGT3 marques, with Algarve Pro Racing and AO by TF’s ‘Spike the Dragon’-liveried car flying the flag for LMP2.

John Dagys, Jonathan Grace and Davey Euwema contributed to this report