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Oreca 01

LMP1 racing car

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

The Oreca 01 is a Le Mans Prototype built by Oreca Racing in 2009. It replaced the Courage-Oreca LC70 raced previously by Oreca. It is powered by an engine from Japanese engine company AIM Power. It is a tuned Judd engine that develops 650 bhp/485 kW at 8000 rpm.

01Racing

2009

Team Oreca Matmut-AIM debuted two Oreca 01's at the 2009 1000 km of Spa, the second round of the 2009 Le Mans Series season. It started off well with the #10 car qualifying fourth place. Unfortunately, Bruno Senna, driving the #10 car had a huge crash after completing 129 of the race winners 143 laps. The accident damage looked identical to the other #10 driver Stéphane Ortelli's crash at the 2008 1000 km of Monza which put him out of the running for the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans. Luckily, the #11 car did finish, in fourth place getting five points.

At the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, the #11 car finished 5th. The #10 did not finish, dropping out after 219 laps.

2010

A single Oreca 01 was entered in the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP, qualifying with a time of 3:29.506, putting it in 10th place. Despite the Lola-Aston Martins being favoured to win the "petrol" P1 class all 3 of them as well as all 4 Peugeots suffered reliability issues, the Oreca 01 was able to take an impressive 4th place overall, highest petrol-fuel finisher and behind only the 3 factory Audis.

2011

2011 saw the Oreca 01 raced by Swiss team Hope Racing as a hybrid-powered vehicle at Le Mans, using the KERS system featured in Formula One and powered by a Volkswagen-based 2 litre engine. The engine is significantly smaller than the AIM (Judd) V10 engine used before in the 01 as there were changes made to the regulations for the 2011 season. The Oreca 01 did not finish, retiring after 115 laps.

02Competition history

Complete Le Mans Series results

(key) Races in bold indicates pole position. Races in italics indicates fastest lap.

Complete Le Mans Series results
Year Entrant Class Drivers No. Rds. Rounds Pts. Pos.
1 2 3 4 5
2009 Team Oreca Matmut AIM LMP1 Bruno Senna
Stéphane Ortelli
Tiago Monteiro
Nicolas Lapierre
Olivier Panis
10 2-3
2
3
5
5
CAT
SPA
Ret
POR
3
NÜR
SIL
1
3rd* 23*
Nicolas Lapierre
Olivier Panis
11 2-3
2-3
CAT
SPA
4
POR
4
NÜR
SIL
11* 8th*
2010 AIM Team Oreca Matmut LMP1 Soheil Ayari
Loïc Duval
Didier André
6 1
1
1
LEC
5
SPA
POR
HUN
SIL
17 11th
Sources:

* Points were scored with the Courage-Oreca LC70E

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

(key) Races in bold indicates pole position. Races in italics indicates fastest lap.

Complete American Le Mans Series results

(key) Races in bold indicates pole position. Races in italics indicates fastest lap.

Year Entrant Class Drivers No. Rds. Rounds Pts. Pos.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2009 Team Oreca Matmut AIM LMP1 Nicolas Lapierre
Olivier Panis
Romain Dumas
7 9
9
9
SEB
STP
LBH
UTA
LIM
MOH
ELK
MOS
ATL
5
LGA
0 NC
Source:
Watch videos about Oreca 01Explainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Oreca 01, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

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