New Asian LMS to straddle 2015-'16

The relaunched Asian Le Mans Series will become a winter series straddling the 2015 and '16 seasons.

The Automobile Club de l'Ouest, which announced it was taking over the running of the series late last year, has updated the calendar for its relaunch season with the addition of a fourth race at the Buriram circuit in Thailand on Jan. 10. It has also moved the Sepang race, originally scheduled to be the final round of a three-race season on Dec. 20, to Jan. 24.

The series will begin with races on the bill of the World Endurance Championship rounds at Fuji and Shanghai: the Japanese event will be of one hour and 20 minutes' duration and the Chinese fixture two hours. The ACO has announced that it will continue with the winter series idea and that it is planning five races of a minimum duration of three hours for 2016-'17.

New Asian LMS series operations manager, Cyrille Taesch Wahlen, who formerly worked for the Stephane Ratel Organization, said: "This proposed calendar, combined with the substantial effort from the ACO to design a more attractive platform, will contribute to a newly revitalized Asian Le Mans Series.

"With four events, a first visit in Thailand and a calendar that will better suit both the Asian and European teams, we are ready for a new start."

The series will be open to LMP2 and LMP3 prototype classes, GTE, GT3 and GT300 machinery racing together in one GT division and one-make cars from the Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Audi one-make cups in Asia competing in GT-Am.

Three guaranteed entries for the Le Mans 24 Hours will be awarded to the championship-winning teams in LMP2, LMP3 (provided there are a minimum of three entries) and GT.

Originally on Autosport.com