Ginetta has withdrawn its solo LMP1 entry from this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Ginetta AER G60-LT-P1 has been under Team LNT has been scrapped off the rescheduled World Endurance Championship which will be held in France on 19th-20th September.
The chief executive of the Ginetta Company which is under The LNT Group, Matte Lowe said, “
“Team LNT with its Ginetta-AER G60-LT-P1 will not be contesting the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours… New COVID cases in France are at their highest level since the start of the pandemic and with the latest quarantine rules in place when returning, as a factory-based team, this will in effect mean a minimum four-week closure of the Ginetta manufacturing facility, with a knock-on effect on Ginetta’s core UK championships.”
“This, coupled with the significantly altered WEC calendar, has meant that after careful consideration, the decision has been taken that the G60-LT-P1 will not contest this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.” The executive added.
The car was due to be driven by Guy Smith who is the 2003 Le Mans champion, Chris Dyson who was Smith’s partner in the American Le Mans and works driver Mike Simpson.
This leaves only five cars in the LMP1 class being the Toyota TS050 Hybrid Pair, two Rebellion-Gibson R13s and one ByKolles ENSO CLM-Gibson P1/01.
Ginetta boss Lawrence Tomlinson stated that they were also not ready in the new WEC series set on November in Bahrain. The outfit has not been competing in WEC since last November when its two entries participated in the Bahrain WEC, the team also missed on the February Austrian fixture and last month’s 6 hours of Spa.
The team boss stated that they needed to return the cars to UK for rebuilding for missing Austin and also pre-testing a series of upgrades on the G60 LMP1 over competing at Spa. The team had also narrowed down to one car because they didn’t want to produce necessary spares for two in case a race postponed from June didn’t happen.
“The factory will instead focus on testing and refining the cars in preparation for the 2021 season.” Lowe added on a statement from LNT.
The team have no further plans to bring the Ginetta for the next season but according to Tomlinson they are hopeful that another team will take over the cars and hence the car will be on the grandfathered basis since there will be introduction of Le Mans Hypercar rules.
