IMSA: ORECA in DPi talks with three manufacturers

French LMP2 constructor ORECA has been busy preparing its new 2017 model for introduction in IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship, and with a short break in the action last weekend at Circuit of The Americas, its technical director gave RACER an update on its upcoming 07 chassis.

"We have very good discussions to have LMP2 cars in the WeatherTech Championship," said David Floury. "As you know, we are really working hard in developing the project in the USA. We are quite confident to have cars racing in the USA next year but cannot announce anything at this stage. We are also looking into DPi. We have currently discussions with three manufacturers."

Related Stories

Floury says ORECA's focus will remain on perfecting the WEC version of the 07 before christening a DPi variant.

"We have not started a DPi design yet and I think it was probably a better approach to focus first on the WEC version and optimize it completely rather than having to conduct in parallel the LMP2 and DPi projects," he added. "This would have led to take short cuts and would not have enabled us to go in as much details as what we have been. Now we are confident that we have a very strong base to design a DPi from and are really looking forward to cracking on."

ORECA has targeted initial track testing for the spec Gibson V8-powered WEC 07 model next month.

"The 07's rollout will take place in the second half of October," Floury said. "We are respecting the planning that we defined at the beginning of the year. We have decided not to rush the rollout in order to spend more time on the car design and development up front. We feel this is a better way to maximize the car performance and this is what we also did with the R-One or the 05. This enables us to pay a lot of attention to every detail and does not push us to make compromises. Besides, the car is sharing many mechanical components with the ORECA 05, so they are already proven."

The 07 follows the ORECA 05 chassis (pictured) which has found considerable success in LMP2.

"Although the ORECA 07 is sharing the monocoque, front crash protection, and many mechanical components with the ORECA 05, it is really a new car," he said. "The car dimensions are different from the ORECA 05, the aero concept is totally different to the ORECA 05 and the ORECA 07 does not share one single piece of bodywork to the 05. It looks very different. We have worked very hard on the aero and exceeded the targets we had fixed ourselves. It is clearly a major step forward from the ORECA 05."

Floury expects the 07's customers to find the car is an optimized version of ORECA's design principles.

"Generally speaking, we have tried to keep the strength of the ORECA 05 and changed what we were not so happy with," he continued. "We have had a big attention to details and the car has been improved in all areas. All the components have been [subjected to finite element analysis], and anything from the 05 which safety coefficient became not acceptable with the higher loads of the ORECA 07, has been redesigned with the appropriate safety margin."

A significant number of 07 sales are expected to be made for the WEC, and one or more could be headed to IMSA.