De Ferran completes 2008 Michelin Roster

Pagenaud and de Ferran

GREENVILLE, S.C. – Joining an impressive Michelin line-up that includes the defending American Le Mans Series (ALMS) champions in all four ALMS classes, the Utah Grand Prix debut of the #66 de Ferran Motorsports’ Acura ARX-01b will complete the roster of 2008 Michelin ALMS technical partner teams.

“We are pleased to welcome Gil de Ferran and de Ferran Motorsports to the Michelin ALMS team," said Silvia Mammone, Michelin motorsports & sponsorship manager. “At Michelin, our first objective is that we race to learn. The de Ferran Acura team will be an outstanding technical partner; a strong competitor; and a perfect capstone to our 2008 Michelin ALMS line-up."

Gil de Ferran and Panasonic co-driver Simon Pagenaud have already started testing with Michelin. “The consistency of the tires was just unbelievable," said de Ferran of his very first test. “I am used to racing where the tires quickly start to lose a bit every lap, but at the Sebring test, we ran 90 laps on the first set of Michelin® tires and the lap times remained very consistent. I thought, well, obviously the hard tires are very good, so we tried a set of softer tires and again the consistency was very impressive. We are looking forward to working with Michelin and are very pleased to be a Michelin technical partner," said de Ferran.

Michelin assigns a tire engineer to work with each of its 12 ALMS technical partner teams. Michelin technical partners have claimed the overall victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the past 10 consecutive years, a mark equaled at the 12 Hours of Sebring earlier this year. Michelin teams recently claimed their 250th ALMS class win.

MICHELIN 2008 ALMS TECHNICAL PARTNER TEAMS
LMP1 – Audi Sport North America – Audi R10 TDI
• # 1 Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro
• # 2 Marco Werner, Lucas Luhr
LMP2 – Penske Motorsports – Porsche RS Spyder
• #6 Sascha Maassen, Patrick Long
• #7 Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard
LMP2 – Patr¢n Highcroft Racing – Acura ARX-01b
• #9 David Brabham, Scott Sharp
LMP2 – Lowe’s Fernandez Racing – Acura ARX-01b
• #15 Adrian Fernandez, Luis Diaz
LMP2 – Dyson Racing – Porsche RS Spyder
• #16 Guy Smith, Chris Dyson
• #20 Butch Leitzinger, Marino Franchitti
LMP2 – Andretti Green Racing – Acura ARX-01b
• # 26 Bryan Herta, Christian Fittipaldi
LMP2 – de Ferran Motorsports – Acura ARX-01b
• #66 Gil de Ferran, Simon Pagenaud
GT1 – Corvette Racing – Corvette C6.R
• #3 Johnny O’Connell, Jan Magnussen
• #4 Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta
GT2 – Flying Lizard Motorsports – Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
• # 44 Seth Neiman, Darren Law
• # 45 Jörg Bergmeister, Wolf Henzler
• # 46 Johannes van Overbeek, Patrick Pilet
GT2 – Risi Competizione – Ferrari F430 GT
• #61 Harrison Brix, Patrick Friesacher
• #62 Mika Salo, Jaime Melo
GT2 – Tafel Racing – Ferrari F430 GT
• #71 Dirk Müller, Dominik Farnbacher
• #73 Jim Tafel, Alex Figge
GT2 – Farnbacher Loles Racing – Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
• # 87 Dirk Werner, Marc Basseng Michelin PR