The Oreca 01, winner of the 2009 Silverstone 1000kms and fifth in the last Le Mans 24 Hours, will be back testing after its first 2010 run on the Portimao circuit. It will begin preparing for the Le Castellet 8 Hours and the Le Mans 24 Hours at the Le Mans Series official test session with Soheil Ayari at the wheel.
“It’s important for us to continue racing with the Oreca 01-AIM,” points out David Floury. “ORECA is a constructor and we want to show just how good this car is as we did last year. We now know it well, as well as the circuit, in fact, which we’ll be racing on in a month’s time in the Le Castellet 8 Hours. One of our aims is to prepare for this event, but before that we’ve got to get back into the swing of racing. It’s going to be the first test of the year for some of our mechanics.”
The AIM-Team ORECA will run on Dunlop tyres and will continue learning about the British Company’s rubber. After a test of a wet track in Portugal, the team is hoping to run on a dry circuit as David confirms: “We were unable to put on slicks because of the weather, so we’re going to finish this part of the programme on the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit. But even if there
aren’t any new parts on the car, we’ve got new components to test.” Some of these may not be used in the next few races. “The Oreca 01 will be a laboratory car in several runs this season,” says the engineer who is the project leader in charge of the prototype currently being designed in the Signes workshops. “We’re going to test technical solutions with a view to
2011.”
During this test session, the Oreca 01-AIM will run in a completely black livery to pay homage to Hiro Kaneda. The Japanese engineer who died in January was responsible for the birth of the V10 Judd installed in the team’s Dallaras in 2002, and then the Courage-Oreca in 2008. He was also one of the moving forces behind the AIM engine, which powered the ORECA to
victory in the Silverstone 1000kms last September.