Lola sports cars were in action at the first official Le Mans Series test of the year test at Paul Ricard yesterday. Eight Lola designed and built LMP racers hit the track in readiness for the Paul Ricard 8 Hours next month. Rebellion Racing tested their brace of Lola LMP1 cars with an all-star line-up in each of their V10 Rebellion powered cars. Finishing the first day of testing in 3rd and 4th places the Swiss team also unveiled their spectacular gold and red 2010 liveries to the waiting media and public. Watching the action from the teams garage were four time World champion Alain Prost and 1978 F1 title winner Mario Andretti, both over seeing their son and grandson respectively.

Marco Andretti got his first taste of a Lola and indeed a enclosed cockpit car of any kind yesterday and concentrated on getting himself comfortable within the Lola cockpit. Guy Smith had a similar acclimatisation day and the 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours winner will dovetail his campaign this year with a full ALMS schedule in the Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda LMP2.The Aston Martin engined Lola’s of AMR and Signature Plus put more miles on their challengers at Ricard. AMR had four drivers on hand with Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke joining Chris Buncombe and Harald Primat who had tested two weeks earlier at Sebring.

In LMP2, the RML team embarked on their first full test of the new HPD power unit in their Lola Coupe. The familiar trio of Mike Newton, Tommy Erdos and Andy Wallace set encouraging times and finished the day third fastest. Racing Box and Kruse-Schiller Motorsport also conducted valuable testing miles as they continue to evaluate drivers for the coming season.

The test at Paul Ricard continues today and lola-group.com will have all the latest times and images during the day.

LEADING TIMES FROM PAUL RICARD TEST

Up until 9pm CET on Sunday evening.

1. Oreca 01-AIM Soheil Ayari, Andy Meyrick, Didier Andre 1:43.259
2. Oreca Peugeot 908 HDi FAP Olivier Panis , Nicolas Lapierre, Loic Duval 1:44.292
3. Rebellion Lola B10/60 Coupé-Rebellion Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani, Marco Andretti 1:45.272
4. Rebellion Lola B10/60 Coupé-Rebellion Andrea Belicchi, JC Boullion, Guy Smith 1:45.631
5. AMR Lola Aston Martin Harold Primat, Adrian Fernandez, Darren Turner, Stefan Mücke 1:46.177
6. Beechdean Mansell Ginetta-Zytek GZ09S-Zytek Nigel Mansell, Leo Mansell, Greg Mansell 1:46.700
7. Quifel ASM Ginetta-Zytek 09S Miguel Amaral, Olivier Pla, Warren Hughes 1:47.072
8. Strakka Racing HPD ARX-01 Nick Leventis, Danny Watts, Jonny Kane 1:47.450
9. Signature-Plus Lola Aston Martin Pierre Ragues, Frank Mailleux 1:47.505
10. RML Lola HPD Coupé Tommy Erdos, Mike Newton, Andy Wallace 1:47.555
13. Racing Box Lola B09 Judd Andrea Piccini, Giacomo Piccini, JD Villarroel, Ferdinando Geri 1:50.697
14. Racing Box Lola B09 Judd Piergiuseppe Perazzini, Marco Cioci, Luca Pirri 1:51.678
16. KSM Lola Judd JD Pourtales, Jonathon Hirschi, Stéphane Lemeret, Hideki Noda, V. Hummel 1:52.901

All pictures Lola Heritage.

The Rebellion Racing Lola LMP1.



The Honda-powered RML Lola.



The KSM Lola-Judd.



Mario warms his hands on the Rebellion Lola!