Photo : Arnaud CORNILLEAU / ACO

 

Benoît Morand appreciates singular stories. Before heading up the team that today carries his name, he was associated with the Oreca LM P1 hybrid project run by Hope Polevision at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2011. "Hats off to those who made that adventure a reality, as it will always be the very first homologated hybrid car to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans." Today, with Morand Racing, he continues to make technical decisions that are unexpected: a Morgan chassis when the majority of the LM P2 grid is made up of Oreca entries, and a Judd engine, when Nissan is the principal supplier of powerplants.  "To not do like what others are doing, that's something of a character trait of mine,"  confirms Benoît Morand. I was intensely convinced that the Morgan was the best choice for our image and helped set us apart from the other competitors. The technical support from Onroak (the company in charge of building and developing the Morgan chassis) is first class. OAK Racing and Onroak are one big family and they make us feel like we are part of it. 2012 was a particularly difficult year for Judd, but they convinced me that they resolved all of their problems. Like with our Morgan chassis, I felt like doing it differently."

Behind the wheel, Swiss driver Natacha Gachnang had an impressive debut in prototypes, with three experienced teammates : Franck Mailleux, Christian Klien and Olivier Lombard. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the trio of Gachnang-Mailleux-Lombard finished fifth in the LM P2 class. « To see Natacha take the chequered flag was an extraordinary feeling," said Joe Genoud, co-owner of Morand Racing. During the Imola and Red Bull Ring rounds of the ELMS, the blue and black Morgan-Judd finished in third place, before Austrian driver Christian Klien, former Peugeot driver in endurance, took over for Franck Mailleux. Following a fifth place finish at the Hungaroring, the duo of Klien-Gachnang had the best finish of the season for Morand Racing at the ELMS finale at the Castellet : after leading with authority, the Swiss pilot finished second, on the heels of winners Brendon Hartley-Jonathan Hirschi in an Oreca-Nissan. In its first season in LM P2, Morand Racing had a top five finish both at Le Mans and in the ELMS points standings. And you can believe that Benoît Morand and his team's originality will surprise us again in 2014...

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO - Translated by Rainier Ehrhardt / ACO

Photo : LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2013, RACE. The consistency of the Morand Racing Morgan-Judd led to a fifth place finish in the LM P2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as a fifth place ranking in the 2013 European Le Mans Series.