ByKolles completes "very good" first test with Vanwall Hypercar

ByKolles Racing head of operations Boris Bermes described the two-day run with the Vanwall Vandervell LMH non-hybrid prototype at the Most circuit in the Czech Republic “as a very good first test for a new car”.

“It was planned as something between a shakedown and a test, but everything went well and it turned into a real test,” Bermes told Autosport.

“We have now sorted all the important things and can start planning a proper test programme.

“The next step is to go to different circuits and to test in different conditions.”

The Vanwall, which is powered by the Gibson normally-aspirated V8, completed more than 100 laps of the 2.62-mile Autodrom Most on Thursday and then a little less on the second day of the test because the weather deteriorated.

Honda's Touring Car World Cup race winner Esteban Guerrieri, who was named as one of two test drivers along with Tom Dillmann for the programme last year, completed the majority of the running in the new car.

Sportscar racing veteran Christophe Bouchut, the Le Mans 24 Hours winner in 1993 with Peugeot, also drove the car after undertaking the initial shakedown of the car at the Zweibrucken airfield in Germany the previous week.

Bouchut completed shakedown of ByKolles Vanwall LMH Hypercar last week at Zweibrucken airfield

Photo by: ByKOLLES Racing

ByKolles is pushing on with its LMH project despite failing to secure an entry for this year’s World Endurance Championship.

The team has outlined an intent to race in next year’s WEC should it be welcomed back into a championship in which it competed in LMP2 in 2012-13 and then in LMP1 from 2014 until the 2019/20 season.

The LMH designed and built in-house by ByKolles will also form the basis of a trackday car and feed into development of a 1000bhp/1000kg hybrid road-going machine.

ByKolles is confident that it has secured the rights to use the name of the British Vanwall Formula 1 team that won the inaugural constructors’ title in 1958.

The model name of the car is a homage to Vanwall boss Tony Vandervell.