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Alpine tops Paul Ricard ELMS test

The Signatech squad began its relationship with Alpine by topping the times in the official European Le Mans Series test at Paul Ricard this week

Signatech's ORECA-Nissan 03, running in French racing blue in deference to the French sportscar manufacturer, ended up fastest in the two-day test in the hands of Nelson Panciatici.

The Frenchman's best lap of 1m47.652s set on Wednesday was half a second up on the next fastest lap, which was recorded on Tuesday by former Signatech driver Frank Mailleux in the Morand Racing Morgan-Judd/BMW LMP2.

Signatech boss Philippe Sinault, whose car was driven by Panciatici, Pierre Ragues and Tristan Gommendy at the test, said: "This is a good start to our story with Alpine. We are very happy with our times."

Sinault, whose team is swapping from Dunlops to tyres supplied by LMP2 returnee Michelin for its ELMS and Le Mans 24 Hours campaigns, explained that his ORECA ran on both 2011-spec and prototype 2013 rubber.

Panciatici set the time on the newer tyre, but Sinault expects the team to race on the older rubber at the ELMS opener at Silverstone next month.

"This is the big change for us in 2013," he said. "We were able to complete more than 1500km as we tested the tyres, which was very productive."

Mailleux joined the Swiss Morand team for the test and has now been confirmed alongside full-season driver Natacha Gachnang for Silverstone.

Third fastest in the Ricard test, at which seven ELMS P2 cars were present, was prototype newcomer Oliver Turvey in the Jota Zytek-Nissan Z11SN on a time a further one tenth behind the Morand Morgan.

The new British Ram Racing Ferrari squad was one of only two GTE teams present at Ricard. Johnny Mowlem set the fastest time of the four drivers who shared its pair of Ferrari 458 Italias.

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