Oreca determined to score its first victory with the 908

After the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Team ORECA-Matmut comes back in Le Mans Series with Portimao 1000 kms. In Portugal, Peugeot Sport works driver, Stéphane Sarrazin, will back up Nicolas Lapierre and Olivier Panis as he did in the first round of the championship. The three men have but a single objective – victory!

Since the start of the season, the team has continued to show its outright speed with the pole position in the Le Castellet 8 Hours and the fastest lap in the Le Mans 24 Hours, in which Duval/Lapierre/Panis were among the front-runners for most of the race. Now, everybody is focusing their attention on the second part of the Le Mans Series, and the team’s programme for the next three months includes Portimao, Budapest and Silverstone. The first challenge comes in the south of the Iberian Peninsula where the Team ORECA-Matmut will be gunning for victory.

“After a good performance at Le Mans, we’re determined to continue to improve and that means a victory,” points out David Floury. In the third round of the championship the main opposition to the no.4 Peugeot will come from the Signature Lola- Aston Martin and the two Lola-Rebellions. “The field is smaller than in the previous races, but we have to remain concentrated on our objectives,” continues the team’s technical director. “We must win! So far our results are not in keeping with our potential. First of all, we’re concentrating on victory in this event, and then we could be aiming for the title. In a way, we’re in a kind of handicap race, and we have to make a final sprint to put ourselves in a position to fight for the title.”

The Portimao round will take place over two days with qualifying and the race on Saturday. This particularity appeals to Floury: “The weekend will be more condensed, so the overall rhythm will be more intense than usual. It’s a good thing as it’ll force us to change our habits. Working conditions will be different: when you put yourself on the line, you always learn more and that’ll help us for the future.”

As he explains, the team will have to learn to cope with these conditions: “It leaves us very little time to steer the right course. What’s more the track will be different in qualifying and in the race, and that’ll have an impact on tyre choice so we have to get our sums right.” While the Team ORECA-Matmut already knows the Portuguese circuit, free practice on Friday will be particularly important. “Racing on this track isn’t totally new for us as we’ve already run the ORECA 01 here,” explains Floury. “We’ll use the information we collected last year and transfer it to the 908 HDi FAP and draw the right conclusions.”