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Aston Martin will enter its factory LMP1 team in this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours and next month’s Sebring 12 Hours.

The British manufacturer had been expected to sit out the 2010 season while developing a new car for 2011, but will now take two LMP1 cars to Le Mans and one car to the American Le Mans Series opener at Sebring, the next round at Long Beach and the LMS season opener at Paul Ricard in April.

Autosport Magazine revealed last week that Mexican driver Adrian Fernandez was working on a deal to race an Aston in the ALMS, and the former Champ Car racer and reigning ALMS LMP2 champion will join the team’s line-up for the program.

Stefan Mucke, Darren Turner, Harold Primat and Chris Buncombe have all been retained, with Aston Martin Racing due to announce a sixth driver in the coming weeks. The team is also set to enter selected races this season after Le Mans, but the details are still to be confirmed.

“We are looking forward to a great season of racing and we hope to have another strong showing at Le Mans,” said team boss George Howard-Chappell. “I’d like to welcome Adrian to the team, I’m sure with his experience he will be a great addition to our driver line-up.”

Aston Martin will also have an increased GT program in 2010, supporting two teams in the GT1 World Championship and one in the FIA GT2 series. Works drivers Mucke, Turner and Tomas Enge racing in the new GT1 series.

Entries Invited for Le Mans Celebration Race to commemorate 1959 MG Car Club Entry

he MG Car Club is inviting entries for a Le Mans Celebration race at Oulton Park on May 9th 2009. Entries are for cars of a type and in a form that were raced up to 1965 – including prewar. All cars should be to FIA spec and on road tyres or “L” sections. The Le Mans Celebration Race is by invitation but if you wish to receive an application call Steve Carr at the MG Car Club Office on 01235 555552.

The race coincides with the publication of a book which records the MGCC North West Centres entries at Le Mans in 1959, 1960 1961. These were disguised Works entries after the MG Car company withdrew from Le Mans following the 1955 accident.

The occasion will be an opportunity for the personnel involved to gather at Oulton along with the actual MGA used at Le Sarthe. The first 25 entries for the race will receive copies of the book fully autographed at the presentation. Entries are sought from all makes including of course MG’s but they have to be of a type that raced at the classic long distance race in the period.

On Sunday 12 October, an estimated 10,000 spectators packed the streets of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire to support Lola Cars landmark 50th Anniversary parade of racing cars. The impressive display of 16 cars represented the marque’s most iconic models from the past half century through to Lola’s all-new 2008 designs. Some of Lola’s most successful drivers were reunited with the winning line-up of cars supporting Lola’s Golden celebration.

The Lola legends included John Surtees OBE, Richard Attwood, Hugh Dibley, Teddy Pilette, Chris Craft, Mike Blanchet, James Weaver, Julian Bailey, Anthony Reid and Peter Ashdown. Current racers included Le Mans Series driver Mike Newton, Malaysian A1 Grand Prix driver Fairuz Fauzy and Danny Watts.

At midday and in brilliant autumn sunshine, Councillor Saeed Akthar, the Mayor of Huntingdon, waved the Union Jack to officially start the parade from Lola’s state-of-the-art headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. The roadside was packed with spectators from start to finish as the snake of 16 cars travelled up the 1.6 route via the local ring road and in to the historic market square where Oliver Cromwell rallied his troops during the Civil War.

Heading up the parade was the all-new RML MG-Lola LMP2 Coupe dressed in the patriotic red, white and blue livery, followed by Lola’s latest track day car B07/90 which had Jonathan Djanogly, MP for the Huntingdon constituency enjoying a passenger ride with sportscar driver Calum Lockie. Other star participants included a Lola T70 Mk111B that cemented the marque’s status in world motorsport during the 1960′s, Sir Jackie Stewart’s 1967 Indy 500 Lola T92 driven by Lola owner and Executive Chairman Martin Birrane and the Mark 1, the first car built by Lola driven by James Leslie, son of the late, great David Leslie.
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Might the mighty Jaguar, once a consistent winner on the LeMans circuit be considering a return to the competition?

According to Autoweek, Jaguar is doing just that – considering a return to LeMans. Supposedly the new Indian parent company, Tata Motors, is evaluating a high-profile motorsports comeback.

“We want to hit the Le Mans race [because] we are examining how to bring the Jaguar brand back to its earlier position,” Tata chairman Ratan Tata told Indian media.

Just a few days after its first roll-out, the fully upgraded RML MG Lola EX265C completed a faultless run to fourth place in the final race of the 2008 Le Mans Series. In a six-hour endurance that was punctuated by dramatic incidents and thrilling nose-to-tail racing, the much-admired new coupé performed without a hitch, rewarding the team’s hard work and meticulous preparation with a reliable and extremely competitive performance.

“I’m delighted – chuffed to bits!” said a smiling Mike Newton, co-driver of the EX265C and CEO of AD Group, principal sponsors to RML’s sportscar programme. “The guys have done an amazing job to put this car together so quickly, and to achieve a trouble-free run is an exceptional achievement.” The team had always approached the Silverstone 1000 Kilometres as an extended, if very public, test session, but poor weather on the previous two days had severely curtailed their on-track development. “When you compare this to where we might have been, after the events of the last couple of days, this has got to be an excellent result,” he added.

The only issue the team encountered during the course of the race was a rise in engine temperature that, if left unaddressed, might have threatened the unit. “The engine was running a little too hot,” said Thomas Erdos, who drove the opening two stints in the MG Lola, and was first to detect the problem. “We were able to de-tune it enough at the next pitstop to ensure it would run the distance, but it meant we were perhaps forty or fifty horsepower down for most of the race. In that respect, fourth is a great result.”

For more, check out PlanetLemans.

RML AD Group’s new MG Lola EX265 completed a faultless first shakedown test at the Silverstone circuit yesterday, Friday 8th February. The morning run left Brazilian driver Thomas Erdos thrilled by the responsiveness of the new XP-21 engine, and looking forward to the prospects of defending the LMP2 title in this season’s Le Mans Series.

Thomas Erdos and co-driver Mike Newton took the series title last year with RML’s MG Lola EX264, having won the LMP2 class in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2005 and 2006. Since then the EX264, itself a derivative of the EX257 that wowed the crowds at Le Mans as an MG works entry in 2001, has undergone significant further development. Arising from fresh links with Shanghai Automotive, MG’s new owners in China, the car has been re-homologated as the MG EX265. Most significant amongst those enhancements has been the production, in association with AER, of the two-litre turbocharged XP-21 engine.

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