ALMS Entries Set for Historic 60th Sebring Challenge
The start of the 14th ALMS season also marks the start of the fourth MICHELIN GREEN X® Challenge season. The 2012 grid at Sebring will be powered by a collection of four different alternative fuels: sulfur-free diesel, E10, E85 and isobutanol.
Four of last year’s American Le Mans Series class championship-winning teams will begin t title defenses in 2012 – Dyson Racing in LMP1, Level 5 Motorsports in LMP2, BMW Team RLL in GT and CORE autosport in LMP Challenge. Black Swan Racing, last year’s GT Challenge champion, moves up to LMP2 for 2012.
While the Series welcomes back all of its 2011 champions, there is still plenty of ‘new’ in the new ALMS season. Both Dyson Racing and Muscle Milk Pickett Racing – leading contenders for the LMP1 championship – have new cars. Dyson debuts a 2012-spec Lola-Mazda coupe while Muscle Milk fields its new Honda Performance Development ARX-03a prototype.
HPD also figures significantly in LMP2. Level 5 has two HPD ARX-03b cars on the Sebring entry. Conquest Endurance, new to the American Le Mans Series, will debut its Morgan-Judd prototype.
The GT class features new versions of Porsche’s 911 GT3 RSR and Corvette’s C6.R. Four of the new Porsches are on the grid – two for Flying Lizard Motorsports and one each for Paul Miller Racing and Team Falken Tire.
Two factory Corvettes are on the entry from Corvette Racing. BMW Team RLL and Extreme Speed Motorsports also have two cars each – a pair of BMW M3 GTs for the defending champions and Ferrari F458 Italias for ESM.
CORE autosport’s two entries headline the LMPC class, featuring the ORECA FLM09. Performance Tech Motorsports and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports are back for another season in ALMS. There are three newcomers in the class – Dempsey Racing (co-owned by Hollywood star Patrick Dempsey), Muscle Milk Pickett Racing and RSR Racing.
The GTC lineup sees nine Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. NGT Motorsports and Alex Job Racing each have two Porsches on the entry. JDX Racing, GMG Racing and TRG return for 2012 with one car each. Green Hornet Racing and Competition Motorsport are back in the ALMS but for the first time as full-season entrants.
The FIA WEC entry list includes teams from eight different countries (the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, UAE, Argentina and Italy) and drivers from at least 20 nations.