Team Nederland, High Class Consider Pulling Reserve Entries

Racing Team Nederland and High Class Racing have responded to being placed on the reserve list for the 24 Hours of Le Mans after contesting the race last year, with both teams stating they’re considering pulling its entries.

The two teams have been a steady presence in the LMP2 class at the French endurance classic over the past few years through its FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series programs.

Both squads have opted to move its efforts to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and will now not be competing at Le Mans unless one or more of the confirmed 62 entries is withdrawn.

Racing Team Nederland team owner/driver Frits van Eerd expressed some surprise at the ACO’s decision to put the Dutch squad on the reserve list and indicated that he is planning to pull his entry before the end of the month if its status remains unchanged.

If that happens, the team will have no presence at the event for the first time since its debut in 2017.

“It’s a bit of a big surprise to us as well,” Van Eerd told Sportscar365. “By the end of next week, if we are not on the list, I’m going to recall myself from the list.

“I don’t want to be a reserve. I’m not going to do that. So we wait one more week. Let’s see what happens.”

The Bronze-rated driver expressed his disappointment at the situation although he was quick to nuance his position, pointing to the large number of entries coming from ACO-run series that make up the majority of the 62-car entry list.

“Business-wise, I can understand why this happens,” he said. “There are so many WEC and ELMS entries and if you add that up, that makes it a full entry list.

“Why should they put cars on the list that are not doing ACO events? So business wise, I can understand it.

“Emotionally, it’s a bit strange. We’re the world champions [in LMP2 Pro-Am] and we bring many fans to Le Mans.

“We also make sure that it will be on television for 24 hours in the Netherlands. But I can live with it.”

Van Eerd said that the lack of a Le Mans entry has not made him doubt his decision to leave WEC in favor of the WeatherTech Championship.

“I’m completely happy,” he explained. To be honest, we never meant to do Le Mans when we started doing IMSA.

“Business-wise, for me it’s very hard to do eight races in the USA.

“So that’s why we made the decision to do the Michelin Endurance Cup. That’s four races, the four long distance races.

“That gave us an opportunity to look at Le Mans and that’s the reason why we made that decision.

“But the most important thing is that we decided to do IMSA [just] to do IMSA. Not to do Le Mans.”

Magnussen Reserve ‘A Shame for Danish Fans’

Similar to Van Eerd’s team, Danish squad High Class also traded in WEC’s LMP2 class for a program in the WeatherTech Championship.

The team led by Anders Fjordbach had filed a pair of entries, one including the father-and-son pairing of Jan and Kevin Magnussen that featured in the grid last year.

The Magnussen’s No. 49 Oreca 07 Gibson, which they share with Mark Patterson, has been named first reserve, with its other car currently the sixth and final reserve entry.

The chances of Kevin rejoining Jan in the lineup faded the week the entry list was released, however, when it was announced that the 29-year-old was returning to Formula 1, which clashes with Le Mans this year.

In contrast to his Dutch counterpart, Fjordbach was not surprised to see his team’s entries turned away but believes it’s bad news for the Danish fanbase at La Sarthe.

“I don’t know if I’ll call it a surprise,” Fjordbach told Sportscar365. “We have been surprised and disappointed before.

“So we did not want to put ourselves in a position where we could be surprised or disappointed again.

“I think it’s a big shame as I think is around 20 percent of the spectators at Le Mans are Danish because of the legacy of Tom Kristensen and Jan Magnussen, who drove there 23 years in a row.

“I’m not disappointed and I’m also not surprised, fortunately. But I think it is a big loss for the Danish spectators. Kevin is the biggest celebrity we have in Denmark.

“I think that is if Jan and Kevin are racing, there’ll most likely be 40,000 spectators more than when they are not. But again, I don’t know from what perspective they’re picking.

“I also saw Roberto Lacorte (Cetilar Racing) and Frits [van Eerd] are not there, which is also a great shame.

“I know that not everyone can be there, but it’s a great shame because they have also been long term customers.

“We even tried to go to Asia to show that we still have faith in the ACO.”

Like Van Eerd, Fjordbach says he’s also considering pulling his entry off the reserve list.

“I think this is something that everyone is considering because to be on the reserve list is a nightmare,” he explained.

“It’s already a nightmare to go there. Because there’s so much work, and it’s so hard to do.

“If you know it is already hard to make a proper effort to do everything perfectly and if everyone gets a 30 or 40 day head start on you, it’s getting really difficult.”