Motorsports
Vladislav Lomko tested the LMP2 prototype for endurance racing
piste Paul Ricard / Photo: © Dan Istitene / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
Russian pilot Vladislav Lomko, who won the silver medal at the Euroformula Open this year, tested a sports prototype for endurance racing in the LMP2 category.
For two days, Lomko worked at the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet with the Swiss Cool Racing team, along with its regular racer Malte Jacobsen, as well as the most experienced Nicolas Lapierre, managing director and part-time pilot of the team. In total, the Oreca 07, driven by Lomko and Jacobsen, completed 187 laps and posted the second time (1:52.877), more than seven tenths of a second behind another LMP2 prototype from the DKR Engineering team (1:52.108).
The tests at Le Castellet were not official races, but track days from the Paragraph 5 company, and therefore the composition of the participants turned out to be very unusual. So, only two cars came to the track
LMP2, but LMP3 and GT pilots were actively training, but among other things, one lap was driven by a Brun C91, built for the 1991 World Sports Car Championship.
For Vladislav Lomko it was the first experience of piloting an endurance car. Previously, the Russian worked only with “formula” vehicles – in Formula 4, Formula Regional and Euroformula Open.
At the same time, for Cool Racing, these two days have become a preparation for the new season. In 2023, the Swiss plan to transfer Jacobsen, who became the champion of the European Le Mans Series among LMP3 pilots in the 2022 season, to a more difficult class – LMP2.
Cool Racing has already confirmed that they intend to compete in the Asian Le Mans Series in the 2023 season, as well as continue to fight in the European championship and enter the start of individual World Championship races. For example, this year Cool Racing took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it immediately took 11th place in the overall and seventh place in the LMP2 standings.
The lineups for the 2023 season will be announced by Cool Racing at a later date.
Source: Sportbox
Sophia Jhon is a sports journalist and author. He has worked as a news editor for Sportish and is now a sport columnist for the same publication. Alberta’s professional interests lie largely in sports news, with an emphasis on English football. He has also written articles on other sporting topics.