The European Le Mans Series this year has three categories: LM P2, LM GTE and GTC.

LM P2 (Le Mans Prototype 2) will be represented by 11 cars and 6 manufacturers. Signatech Alpine will be defending its title in 2014 with the No.36 Alpine 450 Nissan which will be driven by European LMPC Drivers' Champion, Paul Loup Chatin, LM P2 Champions Nelson Panciatici and Pierre Ragues and Briton Oliver Webb. Jota Sport has recently announced that Audi driver Filipe Albuquerque will be joining the team at the wheel of the Zytek Z11SN Nissan and the Portuguese will be accompanied at Paul Ricard by Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell. The two other ZytekS on the grid will be the No.41 and No.28 Greaves Motorsport entries, driven by American Chris Dyson and Briton Tom Kimber- Smith, and Tony Wells and James Littlejohn.

Thiriet by TDS Racing will enter the new Ligier JS P2 -Nissan later in the season, and will be at the Castellet test with the n°46 Morgan-Nissan. Team boss Pierre Thiriet will be teamed with Ludovic Badey and Tristan Gommendy.

Three additional Morgan chassis will be present in the ELMS in 2014, the first being the No.43 Morgan-Judd of Newblood by Morand Racing which will be in the hands of two top drivers, former F1 driver Christian Klien of Austria, the Swiss Gary Hirsch who was 2013 European LM PC Champion and French Romain Brandela. Pegasus Racing has entered the No.29 Morgan Nissan with Frenchman Julien Shell and Swiss driver Nicolas Leutwiler on board. The third Morgan will be Judd-powered and run by Larbre Compétition which is returning to the ELMS with Jacques Nicolet in the No.50 entry.

The Irish Murphy Prototypes team will enter the No.48 ORECA 03-Nissan with two yet-to-be-announced drivers, while a second car from the Varois manufacturer will be in the hands of German René Rast and Belgian Laurens Vanthoor representing one of the new teams for this season: Sébastien Loeb Racing. Finally, Race Performance has entered an ORECA 03-Judd for Michel Frey and Frenchman Franck Mailleux.

The largest category for the Le Castellet test session will be that of LM GTE with 14 cars and three different manufacturers. Eight Ferrari 458 Italias will be on track, two of which will be from the Italian AF Corse team and driven by Piergiuseppe Perazzini and Marco Cioci, and by Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin, now a WEC driver, in the other. Newcomer to ELMS, the French SOFREV-ASP team, will run Frenchmen Soheil Ayari, Anthony Pons and former World Champion footballer Fabien Barthez. AT Racing, also a newcomer to the ELMS this year, will run the No.56 Ferrari 458 Italia with the Belarus line up of Alexander Talkanitsa Senior and Junior. JMW Motorsport is due to announce its drivers soon, while Kessel Racing will enter two Ferraris for Pole Michael Broniszewski and Italians GiacomoPiccini and Marco Frezza. The second car will be in the hands of Nigerian Kolawole Aluko who will be teamed up with Thomas Kemenater and Matteo Cressoni. After having won the GTC title in 2013, last but not least amongst the Ferraris will be that of the SMP Racing team which will be driven by Andrea Bertolini, Viktor Shaitar and Sergey Zlobin.

Two Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs will be entered by IMSA Performance Matmut. The No.67 crew will benefit from an all-French line up, composed of Erik Maris, Jean- Marc Merlin and Eric Helary, while the No.76 will be driven by Raymond Narac, Nicolas Armindo and Belgian driver Laurent Pasquali. Crubilé Sport's Porsche 997 GT3 RSR will be in the hands of François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Sébastien Crubilé. Gulf Racing UK will enter another Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to be driven by Michael Wainwright, as well as an Aston Martin Vantage V8 in the hands of Roald Goethe and Stuart Hall. The last Porsche 911 GT3 RSR on the LM GTE grid will be the one of Prospeed Competition with German Paul van Splunteren, Greek Dimitris Deverikos and Belgian Maxime Soulet.

The GTC class is also booming. SMP Racing will be defending its title with three Ferrari 458 Italia GT3s. The No.57 will be driven by Boris Rotenberg, Finn Mika Salo and Italian Maurizio Mediani. The team's second car, No.71, will have a 100% Russian line up in the hands of Anton and Kirill Ladygin and Aleksey Basov while the No.73 will feature Monegasque driver Olivier Beretta alongside Alexander Frolov and David Markozov. Four further cars from the Prancing Horse marque will be on track at Paul Ricard: two for the Italian AF Corse team crewed by an all-Danish line up of Mads Radsmussen and Dennis Lind in the No.63 and Per Nielsen and Christian Overaad in the No.64. The ELMS welcomes two new teams for the final two Ferraris, Team Sofrev-ASP (Christophe Bourret, Pascal Gibon and Jean-Philippe Belloc) and the Danish Formula Racing team for whom Jan Magnussen, Johnny Laursen and Mikkel Mac Jensen will drive.

In addition to its commitment in LM P2, Sebastien Loeb Racing will also be present in GTC with the only Audi R8 LMS on the grid. It will be driven notably by Frenchman Henry Hassid. Team Russia by Barwell will enter the only BMW Z4 GT3, its Russian-British line up being Leonid Machitski, Timur Sardarov and Jonathan Cocker. A Porsche 997 GT3 will also be present in the category, driven by Frenchmen Franck Perera, Lucas Laserre and Eric Dermont for the Pro GT by Almeras team. ART Grand Prix will be competing with two McLaren MP4-12C GT3s which will undoubtedly make an impression on the European series with its cars being driven by Mexican Ricardo Gonzalez and Syrian Karim Ajlani in one, Estonian Kevin Korjus and Grégoire Demoustier in the second. Finally, Boutsen Ginion Racing will enter the GTC class in 2014 with a third McLaren MP4 12C GT3, for which the driver line up is still to be announced.

The official test session of the European Le Mans Series (entry list) will be held on 1st/2ndApril at Le Castellet. A pre-season press conference will be held on Tuesday 1st at 12:30pm.

Tuesday, April 1

9:00 am to 1:00 pm - morning session

12:30 pm - press conference

2:00 to 6:00 pm - afternoon session

7:00 to 9:00 pm - evening session

Wednesday, April 2

9:00 am to 1:00 pm - morning session

2:00 to 5:00 pm - afternoon session

ELMS press release