After contesting the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014 with a pair of Ferrari 488 GTEs, the Silverstone Park-based team went on to win the Aston Martin Racing Festival of Le Mans with a V12 Vantage GT3 in 2015. After a year off in 2016, the European Le Mans Series GTLM class-winning team is back and ready to take on the 13km long track in the heart of France.
“It great to be going back to Le Mans with many of the same pit crew who were with us in 2014 and 2015,” commented Team Principal Dan Shufflebottom. “We have great memories of racing here and would love to take another GT3 race win.”
Since moving to GT3 racing in 2015, the team has won the 24 Hours of Paul Ricard, has finished second overall at Dubai 24 Hours and has podiumed in numerous endurance races including Barcelona 24 Hours. In fact, in its debut year as a GT3 team, RAM Racing won the 24H Series GT3 title with the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3, which it ran alongside its British GT Championship programme.
The 2017 Le Mans Cup season, however, didn’t start so smoothly for RAM Racing, as the #30 Mercedes AMG was taken out of the opening race at Monza in a lap one incident, but Dan is confident their championship hopes are still high.
“We need to treat Monza as our dropped race,” he said. “I’m pretty sure everyone will have one retirement or bad result this season, we just need to make sure we don’t have another. This means the pressure is on but we work well under pressure and we’re looking forward to seeing what results we can get this week.”
There are two chances to score points this week as the Road to Le Mans includes two 55-minute races. The team, which has taken 11 podiums from 30 races entered in its four-year existence, will aim to take top points in both to put it in a fighting position going into Redbull Ring in July.
“We tested at Redbull Ring last week and we were very happy," Dan continued. "Tom reported that the car felt great and Remon was very quick and had good confidence. We’re in a good place going into the next two rounds.”
