Le Mans 2015 runners and riders

Porsche has stepped up its assault and Nissan has joined the the big guns in LMP1, yet the intrigue ahead of the 83rd running of the Le Mans 24 Hours stretches all the way down the entry list.

Picking a winner in LMP2 and GTE Pro is probably even harder than making predictions about the battle at the sharp end: the four GTE manufacturers should all be in the hunt in Pro; and at least 10 of the 19 P2 cars head into the big race this weekend with their eyes on a class victory.

With pre-event scrutineering now complete, and the countdown on to the start of race week's track action, AUTOSPORT's sportscar expert Gary Watkins takes you through the entire field.

LMP1

TOYOTA RACING
Toyota TS040 HYBRID
#1 Anthony Davidson/Sebastien Buemi/Kazuki Nakajima
#2 Alex Wurz/Stephane Sarrazin/Mike Conway

Toyota returns after last year's Le Mans near-miss as reigning World Endurance champion with a two-car team of updated TS040s - the finances weren't available to field the third car that might have made the difference last year. Nakajima has moved into the lead car with reigning champions Davidson and Buemi, while Conway has been promoted to a full-season drive from his test and reserve role.

The Toyota Motorsport GmbH team has made a big step with the 2015-spec TS040, which like the original continues in the hybrid sub-class that allows for six megajoules of energy to be deployed over the long Le Mans lap. The problem is that its rivals have made much bigger improvements.

The TS040 was just about in the mix at the Silverstone WEC opener in April and then off the pace in round two at Spa. Those are probably the worst two circuits on the WEC schedule for Toyota, which means that more worrying for the Japanese manufacturer was the lack of speed from its low-downforce car at the Le Mans test day.

The evidence suggests that Toyota will not be able to challenge Audi and Porsche on lap time in the dry. Its speed in wet and mixed conditions still looks good.

It believes it has a reliable car and points out that the winning Audi spent 25 minutes in the pits at Le Mans last year.

AUDI SPORT TEAM JOEST
Audi R18 e-tron quattro
#7 Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer/Marcel Fassler
#8 Loic Duval/Lucas di Grassi/Oliver Jarvis
#9 Marco Bonanomi/Filipe Albuquerque/Rene Rast

Audi may be the returning winner at Le Mans, but it left no stone unturned in its bid to avenge its defeat in the WEC title race last season. This year's R18 is built around the same monocoque as before, but it has moved up into the 4MJ hybrid sub-class and the aero is all-new - twice over.

Audi won at Silverstone with its sprint-spec car and then showed up at Spa with two of its low-drag versions designed for Le Mans and won again. The second version - which would incorrectly be called low-downforce on the basis of Spa - was in the mix over the course of an inconclusive test day.

Jarvis steps up from the third car to join Duval and di Grassi for the full WEC season, while Rast is promoted from Audi's GT ranks to take his place alongside Bonanomi and Albuquerque in the additional entry for Le Mans.

PORSCHE TEAM
Porsche 919 Hybrid
#17 Mark Webber/Timo Bernhard/Brendon Hartley
#18 Roman Dumas/Neel Jani/Marc Lieb
#19 Nico Hulkenberg/Nick Tandy/Earl Bamber

Porsche's 2015 LMP1 challenger may be unchanged in name but it is an all-new car right down to its monocoque and the capacity of its V4 turbo engine. The concept remains unchanged, though the latest 919 moves from the 6MJ hybrid class into the highest 8MJ division.

The new 919 is clearly a step forward on last year's original. It stayed ahead of the winning Audi for more than half the race at Silverstone and was only beaten at Spa because Audi was able to do two and a half stints on the tyres. That goes a long way to proving that, despite the company rhetoric, Porsche will be a contender at Le Mans.

The driver line-ups in its two full-season WEC entries are unchanged, but it has stepped up its challenge with an additional car for Le Mans shared by Formula 1 driver Hulkenberg and GT graduates Tandy and Bamber.

NISSAN MOTORSPORTS
Nissan GT-R LM NISMO
#21 Tsugio Matsuda/Lucas Ordonez/Mark Shulzhitskiy
#22 Michael Krumm/Harry Tincknell/Alex Buncombe
#23 Max Chilton/Olivier Pla/Jann Mardenborough

Nissan makes its return to the pinnacle of sportscar racing after an absence stretching back to 1999 with a radical front-wheel-drive contender designed and built in the US.

The form in which it will make its race debut at Le Mans is not quite as radical as intended, though; it has been forced to abandon deployment of retrieved power through its skinny rear tyres and drop down from the the eight to the 2MJ category.

Homologation issues and a desire to continue testing away from competition forced it to miss the opening two rounds of the WEC and it hardly set the world on fire at the test day when it wasn't able to exploit the short periods of a fully-dry track. Even so, it's sticking to its prediction that the GT-R LMs will easily outqualify the best of the LMP2 pack.

Its driver line-up is a mixture of drivers who have raced Nissan-engined LMP2 machinery - the likes of Pla and Tincknell - and existing company drivers such as Krumm, plus name signing Chilton.

TEAM BYKOLLES
CLM-AER P1/01
#4 Tiago Monteiro/Pierre Kaffer/Simon Trummer

The German-based team formerly known as Lotus LMP, now racing under the Austrian flag, brought out a heavily revised AER-engined P1/01 for Spa. The car that competed in the final five rounds of last year's WEC now has a new gearbox, aerodynamics and suspension.

Its early pace at the test day, before a tyre failure curtailed running, suggests that it is a significant step forward on its predecessor, though it was outpaced by its only rival in the P1 privateer ranks, the re-engined Rebellion.

GP2 graduate Trummer is contesting the full WEC with the team and is joined at Le Mans by team regular Kaffer and race-returnee Monteiro.

REBELLION RACING
Rebellion-AER R-One
#12 Nick Heidfeld/Nicolas Prost/Mathias Beche
#13 Christian Abt/Alexandre Imperatori/Dominik Kraihamer

Rebellion, which has three top-six finishes at Le Mans to its name, makes a belated seasonal debut at the 24 Hours with a revised version of the R-One now powered by an AER twin-turbo V6. The team reckons it still has work to do in exploiting the new package, but its pace at the test day was encouraging given the lack of the dry running

The line-up of Heidfeld, Prost and Beche, who finished an unexpected and distant fourth last year, in the lead car is unchanged, while Abt and Imperatori join Kraihamer in #13.

LMP2

G-DRIVE RACING (OAK)
Ligier-Nissan JSP2
#26 Sam Bird/Roman Rusinov/Julien Canal
#28 Pipo Derani/Gustavo Yacaman/Ricardo Gonzalez

G-Drive Racing is back with two Nissan-powered Ligiers run by OAK this season after its near-miss in last year's WEC title chase. Talisman driver Olivier Pla has departed for pastures new at Nissan, but the team has worthy replacements in Bird and Derani to lead its two cars.

Car #26 has already chalked up a victory this season at Silverstone and #28 a points maximum at Spa. Two strong line-ups and the pace of the Ligier everywhere must make G-Drive the favourite for class honours

SMP RACING
BRE-Nissan BR01
#27 Nicolas Minassian/Maurizio Mediani/David Markozov
#37 Mikhail Aleshin/Kirill Ladyin/Anton Ladygin

Russian entrant SMP, winner of the WEC P2 drivers' and teams' titles last year, has its own car for this season built by sister company BR Engineering. The Nissan-engined BR01, run from SMP's French headquarters rather than by AF Corse, had a unspectacular race debut in the Imola ELMS round and didn't trouble the class pacesetters at the test day.

But the team is slowly developing the car and did complete 7000km (4350 miles) of testing with the new car, mostly in Le Mans configuration, in the run-up to its first race. SMP has big ambitions for the BR01, but Le Mans might have come too early.

PEGASUS RACING
Morgan-Nissan LMP2
#29 Ho-Ping Tung/David Cheng/Leo Roussel

Pegasus made its Le Mans return last year after its Morgan was promoted from the reserve list, four seasons on from its previous appearance with the shortlived Norma LMP2 project. Tung, who impressed with OAK last year, bolsters the line-up.

In addition to an improved driver line-up, the team looks sharper and better funded than before, but has yet to turn that into concrete results with a Morgan that hasn't been upgraded to the latest specification.

EXTREME SPEED MOTORSPORTS
Liger-Honda JSP2
#30 Scott Sharp/Ryan Dalziel/David Heinemeier Hansson
#31 Johannes van Overbeek/Jon Fogarty/Ed Brown

North American sportscar regular ESM is making a full-season assault on the WEC after trial outings at Austin and Shanghai last year to promote the Patron Tequila brand. French law prevents the cars from carrying alcohol sponsorship, so the ESM Ligiers run in the colours of Rolling Stone magazine at Le Mans.

The team is up against it after abandoning the HPD ARX-04b coupe it ran at the Daytona 24 Hours and reverting to its open-top 03bs before a pair of new Ligiers came on stream at Spa. This troubled start to its campaign will count against ESM on its Le Mans debut.

OAK RACING
Ligier-Honda & Nissan JSP2
#34 Laurens Vanthoor/Kevin Estre/Chris Cumming
#35 Jacques Nicolet/Jean-Marc Merlin/Erik Maris

OAK adds an additional Honda-powered car alongside its full-time Nissan-engined WEC entry driven by team boss Nicolet and his 50-something mates. The team has drafted in GT stars Vanthoor and Estre to share the extra car with Canadian Cumming to create arguably one of the strongest line-ups in class.

The Nissan-engined car isn't going to trouble the frontrunners, but the Honda entry immediately became one of the pre-event favourites when Vanthoor went fastest in class at the test day. This turbo car is, unlike last year, more or less on the weight limit and a much more competitive proposition than 12 months ago.

SIGNATECH ALPINE
ORECA-Nissan 03R
#36 Nelson Panciatici/Paul-Loup Chatin/Vincent Capillaire

Two-time ELMS champion Signatech maintains faith in the open-top ORECA (still sporting Alpine badges and A450b nomenclature) with which it finished third in class at Le Mans last season for its graduation to the WEC in 2015. It was arguably the fastest car in 2014 and might have won but for the need to change a front upright.

The team has yet to make a mark on this year's WEC, but it did prove its intent when Chatin posted second fastest time in class at the test day. Signatech has everything required to put its disappointing start to the WEC behind it.

JOTA SPORT
Gibson-Nissan 015S
#38 Oliver Turvey/Mitch Evans/Simon Dolan

ELMS frontrunner Jota team is bidding for a second straight Le Mans class win with two thirds of the line-up - in Turvey and Dolan - that took its amazing comeback victory last year plus GP2 racer Evans, who has already made an impression in his short sportscar career to date. The car has a new name and is now known as the Gibson 015S, but it is the very same Zytek chassis that Jota has used each year in the 24 Hours since 2012.

The upgrades that accompanied the name change have built on the new front aero that turned the car into a frontrunner at Le Mans last year. A victory on a guest appearance in the WEC at the Spa suggests it will challenging for another victory in the 24 Hours.

KROHN RACING
Ligier-Judd/BMW JSP2
#40 Joao Barbosa/Niclas Jonsson/Tracy Krohn

Le Mans stalwart Krohn Racing has moved into the prototype ranks after eight previous Le Mans campaigns in the GTE (nee GT2) division that yielded three class podiums with Ferrari, two when its entry was run by Risi Competizione. It contests the ELMS around its Le Mans campaign with its Judd/BMW-engined Ligier and has brought in two-time Daytona 24 Hours winner Barbosa for the big race in place of Oswaldo Negri Jr.

Krohn runs on the unfashionable Michelins, rather than the benchmark Dunlop tyres, and has been a solid top-six runner in the ELMS rather than a frontrunner so far. The team's chances will hinge on whether boss Krohn is on form.

GREAVES MOTORSPORT
Gibson-Nissan 015S
#41 Jon Lancaster/Gary Hirsch/Gaetan Paletou

Le Mans stalwart Greaves is back with a solo Gibson (it fielded an additional car under the Caterham banner last year) and a driver line-up that remains strong even with the replacement of Bjorn Wirdheim by Nissan GT Academy winner Paletou, who is making his Le Mans debut after fewer than 20 races in his career.

Greaves has already tasted success in the ELMS at Silverstone and was on the pace at Imola. The combination of these drivers, the team's experience and the Gibson chassis must give Greaves a shot at victory.

STRAKKA RACING
Strakka Dome-Nissan S103
#42 Danny Watts/Jonny Kane/Nick Leventis

Strakka has arrived at Le Mans one year late after a series of delays thwarted its effort to race its Dome-designed contender last season. The torrid history of the S103 project means it is easy to forget that the team was top LMP1 privateer at the 24 Hours in 2013 when it finished sixth.

The car, driven by the team's long-standing line-up, hasn't been in the mix in the WEC so far and the team has opted to take one variable out of the equation by swapping to Dunlop tyres. A decent performance at the test day shows that progress is being made.

TEAM SARD MORAND
Morgan-Judd/BMW EVO
#43 Oliver Webb/Pierre Ragues/Zoel Amberg

The progress that took this Swiss team from bit player to ELMS race winner looked at risk of being derailed by financial problems ahead of the start of the WEC season, but Morand bounced back after missing Silverstone with a podium at Spa for its Morgan EVO powered by a SARD-badged Judd/BMW.

A strong driver line-up matches the team's ambitions, so Morgan should be regarded as a dark horse for a podium.

IBANEZ RACING
ORECA-Nissan 03R
#45 Ivan Bellarosa/Jose Ibanez/Pierre Perret

The French Ibanez team, which contested the Le Mans Series with a Courage back in 2009, has returned to high-level sportscar racing with a fleet of ex-Delta/ADR ORECAs (though only one made it onto the full Le Mans entry list) and a link-up with the Italian Wolf operation.

Sixth at Imola suggests Ibanez is a more competitive proposition at this level than it was before.

THIRIET BY TDS RACING
ORECA-Nissan 05
#46 Tristan Gommendy/Pierre Thiriet/Ludovic Badey

This French team has renewed the relationship with ORECA that yielded the 2012 ELMS title after a disappointing season with a Morgan and then the Ligier last year. It arrives at Le Mans with a driver line-up unchanged from 2014 and a first win for the 05 coupe at Imola under its belt.

TDS must be a contender to go one better than its Le Mans near-misses in 2012 and '14. And don't count out a pole shot from the underrated Gommendy as he goes for two in a row.

KCMG
ORECA-Nissan 05
#47 Nicolas Lapierre/Richard Bradley/Matt Howson

Chinese entrant KCMG, based for the moment in Germany, has swapped from the open-top ORECA 03R with which it won races in the WEC last year to the French marque's new 05 coupe. Team regulars Bradley and Howson return, and are joined at Le Mans by ex-Toyota driver Lapierre (who replaces Porsche man Tandy).

The team has been slowly unlocking the potential of the ORECA coupe and has been in the hunt for podiums at both WEC rounds so far. Howson's pace at the test day - he was fourth fastest as the top silver - suggests KCMG is going to challenge for victory.

MURPHY PROTOTYPES
ORECA-Nissan 03R
#48 Karun Chandhok/Nathanael Berthon/Mark Patterson

ELMS stalwart - and race-winner - Murphy has retained its open-top ORECA 03R for another season, has a line-up of drivers who have all raced with the team before and a Le Mans-winning engineer in Dave Benbow (Jaguar 1990) on the headphones.

A second-place finish at the Imola ELMS round last month and a strong showing at the test day suggests that everything is now in place for it to convert its Le Mans pace into a decent result in its fourth crack at the 24 Hours.

GTE Pro

AF CORSE
Ferrari 458 Italia
#51 Gianmaria Bruni/Toni Vilander/Giancarlo Fisichella
#71 James Calado/David Rigon/Olivier Beretta

Ferrari defends its Le Mans GTE Pro crown with an unchanged two-car line-up from AF Corse. That means Fisichella and Beretta rejoin the squad to drive cars that this year bear allegiance to Russian entrant SMP.

The Italian marque has picked up where it left off in last year's WEC. Bruni and Vilander won from the back at Silverstone and would probably have won at Spa but for a pitstop infringement. Rigon and Calado, meanwhile, are gradually developing into a competitive proposition.

CORVETTE RACING (Pratt & Miller)
Chevrolet Corvette C7.R
#63 Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia/Ryan Briscoe
#64 Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner/Jordan Taylor

Corvette Racing returns to Le Mans for a 16th consecutive appearance with two cars as usual and a tweaked driver line-up. Briscoe joins Chevrolet's Le Mans squad for the first time in place of Richard Westbrook alongside Magnussen and Garcia, while Taylor moves over to share with Gavin and Milner.

These trios are bidding for a first class victory at Le Mans for the Corvette since 2011. But it shouldn't be forgotten that the new C7.R had the pace to win last year: the car driven by Magnussen, Garcia and Taylor ended up second despite dropping as much as two laps off the lead early in the race.

PORSCHE TEAM MANTHEY
Porsche 911 RSR
#91 Richard Lietz/Michael Christensen/Jorg Bergmeister
#92 Patrick Pilet/Frederic Makowiecki/Wolf Henzler

Porsche doubles up on its bid for outright honours with an attack on the GTE Pro class with a pair of 991-shape 911 RSRs run by the factory Manthey squad. Christensen comes in to drive the #91 car with long-time Porsche drivers Lietz (for the season) and Bergmeister (for Le Mans), while Pilet and Makowiecki are teamed with Holzer for the 24 Hours.

Although Porsche wasn't a true contender at Le Mans last year, it has been right in the mix at both Silverstone and Spa. With a bit more luck, it might have won the class both times.

ASTON MARTIN RACING
Aston Martin Vantage GTE

#95 Nicki Thiim/Marco Sorensen/Christoffer Nygaard
#97 Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke/Rob Bell
#99 Fernando Rees/Richie Stanaway/Alex MacDowall

The Prodrive-run AMR squad fields three Pro cars as it did in 2013, with the graduation of the 'Danish' car that swept all before it in the Am ranks last season. This Vantage GTE, in which Lotus Formula 1 development driver Sorensen joins regulars Thiim and Nygaard, runs in the now-traditional Gulf Oil blue and orange.

Bell returns to the Aston fold alongside stalwarts Turner and Mucke in the #97 car, while Rees and MacDowall are teamed with Stanaway this year in an entry running in the colours of solar energy company Hanergy.

Aston proved that it is still a contender with class victory at Spa after a poor Silverstone showing. Nor should it be forgotten that it was leading into the 18th hour at Le Mans last year when a power-steering pipe failed.

GTE AM

LARBRE COMPETITION
Chevrolet Corvette C7.R
#50 Paolo Ruberti/Gianluca Roda/Kristian Poulsen

The French Larbre team, five times a class winner at Le Mans, moves back to its spiritual home in the GT ranks after a year running a P2 prototype.

The results haven't come yet with the C7.R for this trio, but they were in the fight at Spa prior to an off.

RILEY MOTORSPORTS
Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R
#53 Jeroen Bleekemolen/Ben Keating/Marc Miller

The US Riley squad, which masterminded the factory Viper campaign at Le Mans in 2013 and the '14 United SportsCar Championship class title, returns as a privateer with an ex-works Viper, now with a more favourable Balance of Performance.

Two members of its 2015 GT Daytona class US squad lead the line-up in Bleekemolen and Keating.

AF CORSE
Ferrari 458 Italia
#55 Matt Griffin/Duncan Cameron/Alex Mortimer
#61 Raffaele Giammaria/Matteo Cressoni/Peter Mann
#83 Emmanuel Collard/Rui Aguas/Francois Perrodo

AF has just three privateer Ferraris in the Am class at Le Mans this year: that's one regular WEC entry and two from the ELMS (although it is running the SMP Ferrari).

The #83 Collard/Aguas/Perrodo car has already proved its competitiveness in the WEC with second-place finishes at Silverstone and Spa.

SCUDERIA CORSA
Ferrari 458 Italia
#62 Townsend Bell/Bill Sweedler/Jeff Segal

This West Coast Ferrari team takes a place on the Le Mans entry courtesy of one of the discretionary guaranteed entries awarded by the USC.

It enters the updated Ferrari 458 owned by Sweedler, which raced at Le Mans back in 2011 in the hands of the Farnbacher team.

TEAM AAI (ProSpeed)
Porsche 911 RSR & GT3-R RSR
#67 Xavier Maassen/Alex Kapadia/Jun San Chen
#68 Mike Parisy/Gilles Vannelet/Han Chen Chen

Taiwanese entrant AAI gained two Am entries based on its successes in last year's Asian Le Mans Series. It has forged a relationship with the Belgian ProSpeed team to run one 991-shape Porsche (#68) and one older 997 model (#67).

Parisy (a Le Mans debutant) and Maassen (back for the first time since 2011) lead the respective line-ups, while it has given a well-deserved chance to sometime LMP2 driver Kapadia.

JMW MOTORSPORT
Ferrari 458 Italia
#68 Kuba Giermaziak/Abdulaziz Al Faisal/Michael Avenatti

The British JMW squad is back for another crack at Le Mans and has renewed the relationship with Dunlop that made it and its forerunner, Virgo Motorsport, a leading class contender in the ELMS.

Porsche Supercup frontrunner Giermaziak makes his Le Mans debut in the JMW Ferrari.

SMP RACING (AF CORSE)
Ferrari 458 Italia
#72 Andrea Bertolini/Viktor Shaitar/Aleksey Basov

SMP maintains a full-time presence in the WEC with a solo GTE Am entry run by AF Corse after its own French-based squad that masterminded its title successes in the 2014 ELMS switched focus to the P2 programme.

Bertolini, on loan from the Ferrari factory, stays with the Russian entrant and is rejoined by handy silver-rated Shaitar, one of his 2014 ELMS GTE co-champions, and Basov to recreate its 2014 Le Mans GT line-up.

DEMPSEY-PROTON/ABU DHABI-PROTON RACING
Porsche 911 RSR
#77 Patrick Dempsey/Pat Long/Marco Seefried
#88 Christian Ried/Khaled Al Qubaisi/Klaus Bachler

Le Mans stalwart Proton, a class winner at the 24 Hours in 2010, is back with two 991-shape 911s for the full WEC and Le Mans, one entered under the banner of US actor Patrick Dempsey and the other under the flag of Abu Dhabi.

Factory driver Long and former Porsche junior Bachler lead the two line-ups, but they haven't challenged the class frontrunners so far despite notching up some decent points.

ASTON MARTIN RACING
Aston Martin Vantage GTE
#96 Stuart Hall/Francesco Castellacci/Roald Goethe
#98 Pedro Lamy/Mathias Lauda/Paul Dalla Lana

AMR defends its GTE Am Le Mans crown with two entries. The 'Danish' car that won the class last year at Le Mans and in the WEC has moved up to Pro, but in Lamy, Lauda and Dalla Lana Aston has a line-up that went a long way to proving they are the best line-up in the class with back-to-back victories at Silverstone and Spa.

Goethe returns to the WEC in the second car alongside Hall and Castellacci.

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