Our top 3 picks for Le Mans 2016

You’ve seen the rounds at Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone, but now we’re gearing up and setting our sights on the 24 Hours at Le Mans 2016.

We’re sure that you’re joining us in our excitement, as the endurance races so far this year have been among the most tense and exciting of any we’ve seen before.

Soon, it’ll be time to turn your eyes to France for the race that separates the youngsters from the grown-ups, which is taking place from 18th to 19th June this year.

It’s one of the most hotly anticipated races of the year, not only for those who go to spectate, but also for the drivers who have been practising for years to get to this point.

This year we expect for the competition to be tighter than normal, as the fuel restrictions clamp ever-tighter and the manufacturers find more revolutionary ways to change and improve the performance of their motorsport cars.

We’ve been keeping tabs on the manufacturer updates in the lead-up to the race and have picked out the three teams we think are going to put in the best performance.

But we’re more interested in hearing what you think – who’s going to be in pole position, and who’s going to be eating dust? Let us know!

 

Porsche

Although Porsche’s roadworthy vehicles might questionable – some might say they favour noise over performance – there’s no faulting the manufacturer’s motorsport team.

We even wrote an article previously extolling the virtues of Porsche and its 919 Hybrid variations.

We can’t forget that Porsche is in a pretty strong position after taking a glorious victory at last year’s Le Mans 24 Hours – making it the 17th time overall that the team has taken the winner’s trophy at this prestigious race.

For this year’s most gruelling round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC), the manufacturer has launched a new 919 Hybrid LMP1 that it says will defend its titles.

Expect good things from this model, particularly as Mark Webber is returning behind the wheel. We’re excited.

 

Audi

Despite having a bit of a disaster last year in the R18 e-Tron Quattro model when Andre Lotterer suffered a puncture, leaving Porsche to climb into an easy lead, we think that Audi will be back with a point to prove this year.

It was a case of supreme bad luck for the German manufacturer last year, as Loic Duval crashed the sister model to Lotterer’s car and the team’s hopes were dashed.

However, this is firmly in the past, as Audi has completely redesigned the entire R18 for the 2016 season.

Much attention has been focused on making the body of the car as lightweight as possible and its hybrid system has been modified with lithium-ion batteries for extra storage.

It was choosing to stop every four laps instead of every three for a tyre change that saw things start to fall apart for Audi last year.

But we believe that the team is shooting for great things with this new model, especially off the back of pole positions at both Silverstone and Spa.

Lotterer and Duval are back along with the rest of the drivers to make a name for the Joest team in 2016, we’re watching them closely.

 

Toyota

So far this year, Toyota GAZOO Racing has appeared quietly confident, despite having a couple of mechanical setbacks in the Spa-Francorchamps round of the WEC.

Apart from this, both TS050 Hybrid cars looked set to take an excellent victory at this last round of the competitive race

It was a real shame, as during the testing at Spa, things were looking good for Toyota, due to both cars showing a massive upshot in performance from previous years in the WEC stage.

However, we think this is going to make the team more determined to chase after a high-level result, particularly as the manufacturer has canned the idea of naturally-aspirated engines.

Powering the TS050 instead is a twin-turbo V6 unit with an output of 973bhp, and the energy is stored with a lithium-ion battery, similar to that in the Audi iteration.

It’s hard to say for sure who’s going to put in the best performance, but we’d be surprised if it wasn’t one of these three, as each one is hungry for first place.