Evo tech

To put into perspective the lap time improvement of the [ORECA] LMP07 that was introduced in 2017, the pole position time on the car’s first run at Le Mans was faster than the 2011 overall pole position time set by Audi in LMP1

Sportscar racing has gone through an evolution in 2021, with the ACO and FIA introducing the Hypercar category as the top class of the World Endurance Championship. In doing so, the top-class prototypes are slower by design than the old LMP1 cars, and that in turn has shifted attention onto the raw speed and reliability of the LMP2 machines.

LMP2 was designed for privateers, yet has seen such a huge improvement in performance over the past decade, that in professional hands the cars challenged Hypercars on certain circuits. Efforts have been made to slow the cars in 2021, and more restrictions are in place for 2022.

This current generation of LMP2 cars was introduced in 2017. Four chassis manufacturers were selected by the FIA to supply the category – ORECA, Dallara, Multimatic and Ligier. These chassis then formed the basis of the DPi cars that were the top class in IMSA. Dallara became the Cadillac, Multimatic the Mazda, Ligier underpinned the Nissan and ORECA the Acura.

The base LMP2 cars were homologated for five years, and one ‘joker’ package was permitted within that time. The ORECA LMP 07 chassis was taken as the benchmark for this joker package, and the other cars were balanced against it.

However, for various reasons, the LMP2 class for the 2022 FIA WEC is solely the domain of the ORECA chassis. had the opportunity to sit down with David Floury, former technical director at ORECA at the formative time of the LMP 07, and who has now moved to TMG in Cologne to continue his role as race engineer