Forty-five cars on the grid for ELMS season opener at Circuit Paul Ricard

The 2018 European Le Mans Series season will kick-off on Sunday, April 15, at Circuit Paul Ricard. The 4 Hours of Le Castellet is the first race on the six-round calendar which also features races at Monza, Silverstone, Red Bull Ring, Spa-Francorchamps and Portimao.

Forty-five cars are on the entry list for the season-opening race, what is four more than on the entry list of full-time entrants which was announced in February. Nineteen LMP2 squads, eighteen LMP3 entries and eight GTE crews are on the list.

There are three different prototypes in LMP2 class (Oreca, Ligier, Dallara), two different cars in LMP3 class (Ligier, Norma) and just two cars in GTE class, Ferrari 488 GTE and Porsche 911 RSR. Corvettes and Aston Martins didn’t return to the ELMS.

2018 ELMS, #2 Ligier JS P3, United Autosports,

LMP3 champions John Falb and Sean Rayhall will share the #2 United Autosports Ligier JSP3

Among drivers, one pair of drivers will try to defend their championship title from 2017. John Falb and Sean Rayhall will compete together again in the #2 Ligier JS P3 of United Autosports. In the LMP2 class, the champions Memo Rojas and Leo Roussel are not returning together but Rojas is announced as a driver of IDEC Sport’s #28 Oreca.

In the GTE class, the British team JMW Motorsport will try defend the title with an all-new crew in the #66 Ferrari 488 GTE. The drivers would be Alex MacDowall, Liam Griffin and Miguel Molina.

ELMS, JMW Motorsport, #66 Ferrari 488 GTE

JMW Motorsport found three new drivers for the #66 Ferrari 488 GTE

Entry list for the 4 Hours of Le Castellet

Class	Number	Team	Car	Drivers
LMP2	21	Dragonspeed	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Henrik Hedman, Ben Hanley, Nicolas Lapierre
	22	United Autosports	Ligier JS P217 - Gibson	Philip Hanson, Bruno Senna
	23	Panis Barthez Competition	Ligier JS P217 - Gibson	Timothe Buret, Julien Canal, Will Stevens
	24	Racing Engineering	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Norman Nato, Olivier Pla, Paul Petit
	25	Algarve Pro Racing	Ligier JS P217 - Gibson	Mark Patterson, Ate De Jong, Tack Sung Kim
	26	G-Drive Racing	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Roman Rusinov, Andrea Pizzitola, Alexandre Imperatori
	27	IDEC Sport	Ligier JS P217 - Gibson	Patrice Lafargue, Erik Maris, William Cavailhes
	28	IDEC Sport	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Paul Lafarge, Paul-Loup Chatin, Memo Rojas
	29	Duqueine Engineering	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Pierre Ragues, Nicolas Jamin, Nelson Panciatici
	30	AVF by Adrian Valles	Dallara P217 - Gibson	Konstantin Tereschenko, Henrique Chaves
	31	APR - Rebellion Racing	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Ryan Cullen, Harrison Newey, Gustavo Menezes
	32	United Autosports	Ligier JS P217 - Gibson	Will Owen, Hugo de Sadeleer, Wayne Boyd
	33	TDS Racing	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Matthieu Vaxivier, Francois Perrodo, Loic Duval
	35	SMP Racing	Dallara P217 - Gibson	Victor Shaitar, Egor Orudzhev, Matevos Isaakyan
	36	Signatech Alpine	Oreca/Alpine A470 - Gibson	Andre Negrao, Pierre Thiriet
	39	Graff	Oreca 07 - Gibson	Alexandre Cougnaud, Jonathan Hirschi, Tristan Gommendy
	40	G-Drive Racing	Oreca 07 - Gibson	James Allen, Enzo Guibbert, Jose Gutierrez
	47	Cetilar Villorba Corse	Dallara P217 - Gibson	Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto, Andrea Belicchi
	49	High Class Racing	Dallara P217 - Gibson	Dennis Andersen, Anders Fjordbach
LMP3	2	United Autosports	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	John Falb, Sean Rayhall
	3	United Autosports	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Anthony Wells, Garret Grist, Matt Bell
	4	Cool Racing	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Alexander Coigny, Iradj Alexander, Antonin Borga
	5	Nefis by Speed Factory	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Timur Boguslavskiy, Alexey Chuklin, Danil Pronenko
	6	360 Racing	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Terrence Woodward, Ross Kaiser, James Swift
	7	Ecurie Ecosse/Nielsen	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Colin Noble, Alex Kapadia, Christian Stubbe Olsen
	8	DKR Engineering	Norma M30 - Nissan	Alex Toril, Jean Glorieux, Miguel Toril
	9	AT Racing	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Alexander Talkanitsa, Alexander Talkanista Jr
	10	Oregon Team	Norma M30 - Nissan	Clement Mateu, Andres Mendez, Riccardo Ponzio
	11	EuroInternational	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Giorgio Mondini, Kay Van Berlo
	12	EuroInternational	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Andrea Dromedari, Maxwell Hanratty, James Dayson
	13	Inter Europol Competition	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Jakub Smiechowski, Martin Hippe
	14	Inter Europol Competition	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Paul Scheuschner, Luca Demarchi, Danny Molinaro
	15	RLR Sport	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	John Farano, Job Van Uitert, Rob Garofall
	16	BHK Motorsport	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Francesco Dracone, Jacopo Baratto
	17	Ultimate	Norma M30 - Nissan	Mathieu Lahaye, Jean-Baptiste Lahaye, Francois Heriau
	18	M Racing - YMR	Ligier JS P3 - Nissan	Lauren Millara, Natan Bihel
	19	M Racing - YMR	Norma M30 - Nissan	Nicolas Ferrer, David Droux, Lucas Legeret
LMGTE	54	Spirit of Race	Ferrari 488 GTE	Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci
	55	Spirit of Race	Ferrari 488 GTE	Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin, Aaron Scott
	66	JMW Motorsport	Ferrari 488 GTE	Liam Griffin, Alex MacDowall, Miguel Molina
	77	Proton Competition	Porsche 911 RSR	Christian Ried, Joel Camathias, Dennis Olsen
	80	Ebimotors	Porsche 911 RSR	Fabio Babini, Riccardo Pera, Raymond Narac
	83	Krohn Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE	Tracy Krohn, Niclas Jonsson, Andrea Bertolini
	86	Gulf Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	Michael Wainwright, Alex Davison, Ben Barker
	88	Proton Competition	Porsche 911 RSR	Gianluca Roda, Giorgio Roda, Matteo Cairoli