FIA WEC Race Preview – PREMA Racing gets into action for Practice and Qualifying

PREMA Racing is set for the most demanding week of the whole FIA World Endurance Championship season. After lining up for collective testing on Sunday, the Italian squad begins its 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours endeavour today with the first practice and qualifying session. The #9 and #63 Oreca LMP2 racecars are set for two intense days.

The team will be on-track for practice on Wednesday early afternoon before going into qualifying, which will decide the 8 participants for Thursday’s Hyperpole session in each class. In addition to Qualifying and Hyperpole, practice sessions will be held on Wednesday and Thursday night to better prepare for the hours of darkness.

Driving in the #63 car, 33-year-old Italian Mirko Bortolotti will make his Le Mans return after a highly-impressive debut last year. He will be sharing the car with 29-year-old F1 star Daniil Kvyat, who started his first Endurance racing season this year and will compete in Le Mans for the first time. 19-year-old Doriane Pin will return to the track after debuting in the GT3 class of the Road To Le Mans event, but this time she will be driving a state-of-the-art LMP2 prototype.

Aboard the #9, 23-year-old Dutchman Bent Viscaal will be the most experienced driver of the trio having raced in the 2022 24 Hours. Young 20-year-old Romanian Filip Ugran and 23-year-old Ecuadorian-American Juan Manuel Correa will complete the line-up, with the latter having made his testing debut at Le Mans on Sunday afternoon.

The drivers will then enjoy the popular Friday Parade which flows through the streets of Le Mans in the embrace of fans, and will join the Centenary celebration in the evening. In the traditional autograph session held on Tuesday, they were gathered by a loving crowd. For the occasion, PREMA unveiled its celebratory poster dedicated to the 100 years of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is available for fans.

Rene Rosin – Team Principal
“It’s finally time to put all the preparations into practice and see how we will perform on-track. There will be some useful track time in which we hope to replicate the conditions of the race as much as we can. There might be rain coming, so that would be another variable to take into account, a particularly challenging one on this circuit. We want to maximize what we have and the work that we can still do. On the other hand, we were amazed by the fan support we once again received in Le Mans. Fans are incredibly important for PREMA, and we hope to reward their passion and support with positive results.”