Le Mans Endurance Series

Encyclopedia : L : LE : LEM : Le Mans Endurance Series

The Le Mans Endurance Series or LMES is a European sports car racing series created as a support series to the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans race. For 2006, the name was shortened to Le Mans Series (LMS) only.

It is modeled after the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), a similar racing series in the United States and Canada that was started in 1999. The similar European Le Mans Series (ELMS) was held only in 2001. Cars like Mercedes-Benz CLR and Toyota GT-One had never entered, and the BMW V12 were withdrawn after 2000, as all factories focused on F1 or touring car racing, leaving only the Audi R8, as Porsche had stopped the development of its V10-powered car.

2004 was the inaugural season of the LMES, consisting of four 1000km races. The races are

1000km Monza at Autodromo Nazionale Monza
1000km Nürburgring at Nürburgring
1000km Silverstone at Silverstone Circuit
1000km Spa at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
1000km Istanbul at Istanbul Racing Circuit in Turkey (added in 2005)

The series uses the same or slightly modified rules and regulations as the Automobile Club de L'Ouest (ACO), which is the sanctioning body for the Le Mans race. The series includes four classes of competition:

GT production car based
GTS production car based, modified
(LM)P1 open prototype cars
(LM)P2 open prototype cars, less weigth and power

At the end of the season winners are declared based on point accumulation throughout the season.

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.