Duval heads Algarve Pro's ELMS assault

Le Mans 24 Hours winner Loic Duval will lead Algarve Pro’s driver line-up in the coronavirus-delayed 2020 European Le Mans season.

The Portugal-based team will again field two Gibson-powered Oreca 07s in the LMP2 class following its championship triumph in the sister Asian Le Mans Series in the winter of 2019/20.

Duval will be joined by returnees Henning Enqvist and John Falb, former ByKolles LMP1 driver Simon Trummer, 2015 ELMS LMP2 champion Jon Lancaster and FIA WEC racer Gabriel Aubry, although Algarve stopped short of revealing the exact distribution of the drivers across its two cars.

The Frenchman has prior experience of the ELMS category, having competed in the first three rounds of the 2018 season with LMP2 squad TDS Racing, scoring a pair of second-place finishes at Paul Ricard and Monza.

He subsequently stepped up to the WEC with the same outfit for the 2018/19 season, claiming a podium finish in the LMP2 class at the curtain-closing Le Mans 24 Hours.

That result marked his third visit to the rostrum in the French endurance classic, following his overall victory in 2013 and a third-place finish in 2016, both as part of Audi’s factory LMP1 team.

“I am really looking forward to the challenge,” Duval said. “The level is really high in the ELMS, this was evident at Le Mans when the ELMS cars were racing closely against the WEC cars. We are ready to win races and fight for the championship this year.”

Duval’s ELMS campaign will come on top of his existing commitments in the DTM, where he will represent Audi in what will be the German manufacturer’s last season in the category.

The new ELMS season will get underway on July 19 at Paul Ricard, two weeks before the DTM’s 2020 campaign kicks off at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

The penultimate round of the ELMS season at Monza, however, clashes with the first of the two DTM rounds at Zolder.

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