WEC: Revised ByKolles LMP1 makes debut

The ByKolles team's heavily-revised CLM LMP1 completed nearly 700km in its first test during Friday's official World Endurance Championship test at Paul Ricard. The reworked AER-engined CLM P1/01 was shaken down on the test's opening morning and went on to complete a total of 114 laps over the three sessions.

"We did a lot of kilometers, mostly collecting data – it was good to do so many laps on our first day with the new car," ByKolles Racing team director Boris Bermes told AUTOSPORT. "We did stop on track twice, but they were not major issues, just new-car stuff."

Team regular Pierre Kaffer undertook the initial running, before Vitantonio Liuzzi and Simon Trummer took over in the afternoon and then continued to test through the night session. The CLM ended up with a best time of 1m49.956s set by Kaffer in the afternoon session, which was 12 seconds slower than the pace-setting Porsche 919 Hybrid and behind the leading LMP2 cars.

The 2015-specification CLM has revised aerodynamics and suspension and an Xtrac gearbox in place of last year's Hewland.

Liuzzi, who raced for the ByKolles team when it was known as Lotus LMP in 2012-'13, will join former GP2 driver Trummer at the Silverstone WEC opener next month. Kaffer is not due to race the car until the Le Mans 24 Hours because of his TUDOR United SportsCar Championship commitments with Risi Competizione.

Originally on Autosport.com