60 invited for Le Mans party while 10 are in the wait

The event held by the FIA and ACO, along with the release of the full season entries of its championships and of the improvements made at the Circuit de La Sarthe, brought excellent news in the afternoon of the last Friday (5), as 60 cars will take part of the 2016 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

New garages are being constructed as planned and published by ACO last year, but the initial idea of having 58 entries this year and then 60 in 2017 was replaced by having 60 garages right now in 2016. Between those, the Garage 56 project will still be nominated as it is, receiving the quadruple amputee Frederic Sausset in a specially built Morgan LMP2 Evo for the SRT41 team.

The LMP1 class will count with the same nine entries of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, as Audi and Porsche won’t feature extra cars for Le Mans. The LMP2 class comes with mix of the FIA WEC and ELMS entries, with the addition of Michael Shank Racing and its Ligier JS P2-Honda coming from the United States, having and incredible count of 22 entries.

The LMGTE-Pro class counts with the FIA WEC entries as well the pair of factory Porsche entries, which are in fact cars that compete in the IMSA Sportscar Championship with CORE Autosport doing the running of both. Risi Competizione brings another Ferrari 488 to the mix, and Chip Ganassi brings an extra pair of Ford GTs from America. To complete the field, the Rolex 24 at Daytona winners from Corvette Racing come with their characteristic pair of yellow C7.R models to defend their class win.

The LMGTE-Am class brings entries from both FIA WEC and ELMS along with Scuderia Corsa with a Ferrari 458 Italia from the United States, as well Asian Le Mans Series GT champions Clearwater Racing with another 458, as well AAI Motorsports with a Corvette C6-ZR1, which is an uncommon car choice these days, although they went to France last year with a pair of Porsche 997 RSR models.

Unfortunately, Le Mans isn’t for everyone, and the ten entries in the reserve list prove that, although some team may quit the journey as the days pass. The deluxe reserve list comes mostly with ELMS teams, as names like Dragonspeed, Courage, Algarve Pro Racing and JMW Motorsport are in the list. The Riley Motorsports squad tries to bring the SRT Viper GTS-R to Le Mans again, while AAI Motorsport appears with a second Corvette C6-ZR1. The list is now topped by the Greaves Motorsport Gibson 015S that will race in ELMS.

The full list and nominated drivers can be seen here, while the full press conference can be seen on YouTube, and the green flag for the 84^th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will be given on June 18^th.

PHOTO: FIA WEC