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Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI Porsche factory driver Kevin Estre will make a return to LMP2 competition for the first time in over a decade after being confirmed as competing for TDS Racing in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. With Porsche Penske Motorsport withdrawing from the FIA World Endurance Championship at the end of last season, Estre was facing the prospect of not competing at Le Mans for the first time since 2014. However, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship regular has now inked a deal with TDS to crew its Oreca 07 Gibson in the endurance classic, sharing the car with Mathias Beche and debutant Tobias Lutke. For Estre, this represents a first LMP2 outing since he contested the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans at the wheel of an OAK Racing Ligier JS P2 Honda. Beche has made sporadic appearances with TDS at Le Mans, including finishing runner-up in the LMP2 Pro-Am class last year with the squad alongside Clement Novalak and Rodrigo Sales. Canadian Lutke, however,...

Photo: Charly López/DPPI ***FIA World Endurance Championship teams were in full swing Monday at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, preparing for the Prologue, which will consist of only a single day. Click Here to view a photo gallery from the day’s pit lane action, which was impacted by intermittent rain showers. Rain is again in the forecast for tomorrow’s on-track running. ***The official pre-season test was originally due to take place at Lusail International Circuit in March, over a choice of two days for teams , ahead of the Qatar 1812km, the latter which has been postponed to late October due to the unrest in the Middle East. ***A number of teams, as well as series organizers, already had equipment in Qatar prior to the onset of the U.S./Israel’s military action on Iran that began on Feb. 28. Sportscar365 understands that BMW Team WRT was one of the quickest teams to react, having been able to divert its sea-freight that was already en-route to Qatar to be unloaded in Crete a...

Photo: Yuya Konishi Toyota will not debut its GR GT3 in next month’s Nurburgring 24, but a first outing for the much-anticipated challenger still appears to be on the cards for later in the year. Revealed last December after years in development, the GR GT3 is set to replace the Lexus RC F GT3 as Toyota’s flagship GT3 when it makes its worldwide debut in 2027. However, it has long been speculated that the car would make its first race appearances before then in the hands of Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda’s Rookie Racing team. A debut in this year’s N24 had in particular been thought of as a possible target event given Toyoda, who also races in the event as ‘Morizo’, has publicly set out the goal of conquering the overall classification Eifel classic in the near future. But with just more than a month to run until this year’s N24, Rookie appears set to focus on running a refined version of the GR Yaris DAT Concept it ran in last year’s race. Appearances later in the year in NLS an...

Photo: SUPER GT Nissan driver Bertrand Baguette says finishing third in last weekend’s Okayama SUPER GT opener has given him a feeling about being able to challenge for the title he hasn’t experienced since Team Impul’s title-winning 2022 campaign. From seventh on the grid, Baguette rose to third after making a series of overtakes before handing over the No. 12 Nissan Z NISMO to co-driver Kazuki Hiramine. Although Hiramine was unable to challenge the two Toyota GR Supras in front, with the title-defending No. 36 TOM’S car of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita scoring victory , Baguette said the result was still a major source of encouragement. It marked the first race for the Z NISMO in its upgraded 2026 spec, with the other two Nissans, the Kondo Racing and NISMO cars, finishing eighth and ninth respectively. “I enjoyed that a lot to be honest,” Baguette told Sportscar365. “It was one of my best races for a long time. “I had a good feeling with the tire, the pace was good and I ac...

Photo: Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe Honors were even on a dramatic opening weekend of Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe action at Paul Ricard with the victories shared between the No. 15 Rexal Villorba Corse machine of Nicholas Pujatti and Benedetto Strignano and the No. 72 DL Racing entry of Kevin Gilardoni and Simone Iaquinta. Silas Rytter had led the opening half of the first contest before the race began to unravel for the polesitting No. 36 Oregon Team crew. First, Rytter picked up a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage by going off the track as he battled side-by-side with Jonathan Cecotto on lap one, before the No. 36 Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 was then slapped with a 40-second sanction for speeding in the pitlane. To compound the misery, shortly after Patrik Fraboni took over he was passed in a double move by both Strignano and Iaquinta at the final corner. Strignano then spent the remainder of the race under stern pressure from Iaquinta and things ca...

Photo: Laurent Cartalade/MPS Agency. Reigning European Le Mans Series champions Forestier Racing by Panis overcame 20 seconds of time penalties to win Sunday’s 4 Hours of Barcelona. The French team continued its winning ways when Esteban Masson took the No. 29 Oreca 07 Gibson that he shared with Oliver Gray and Louis Rousset across the line 13.398 seconds ahead of Reshad De Gerus in the No. 34 Inter Europol Competition machine. Masson pinched the lead from the pole-sitting Inter Europol car in the final ten minutes of the race. The Panis entry bounced back from two separate ten-second penalties served in the second hour when Rousset was at the wheel, the first for overtaking off-track and having a lasting advantage and the other for disrespecting race director’s instructions. Masson, who was in the car at the time of serving the penalties, dropped back to fourth at the end of the second hour but rallied back to the lead shortly after. De Gerus, meanwhile, brought home the Polis...

Photo: Toyota SUPER GT organizer GTA has explained further the circumstances that forced this year’s Sepang 300km to be called off. The GTA and event promoter HARO Sports & Entertainment announced on Wednesday that the series’ return visit to Sepang slated for June 19-21 will not take place, while on Friday a reduction in this year’s calendar to seven races was confirmed . It comes amid the economic impact that has arisen from the U.S./Israel-Iran conflict and the imperative to reduce fuel consumption in the countries that have been worst-affected by the reduction in fuel supply from the Gulf region. Addressing reporters on Sunday ahead of the opening round of the new season at Okayama, GTA chairman Masaaki Bandoh explained in further detail the circumstances behind what was billed as a “postponement” of the Sepang round. “The main reason we were forced to postpone the race is the sharp rise in the price of fuel and crude oil,” Bandoh told assembled reporters. “In Japan, t...