It may appear that since the Le Mans Series race atDonington last August, Lister has been inhibernation for the winter! This is not the case.

Donington was a turning point for Lister whenMichel Elkoubi of Pescarolo showed Laurence amodel of their new LMP1 chassis; the seedswere sown and Laurence immediately orderedthe first customer chassis ever to be supplied byPescarolo. In October, we also decided to usethe Pescarolo 2006 bodywork. And a Judd 5.5S2 engine.

The next step was to find a designer for the rest ofthe car; Laurence was speaking to TonySouthgate (who you may remember wasinfluential in the design of the early GT Storm)and he suggested Peter Elleray. Peter startedwork in late September and by the end ofJanuary the majority of the design wascompleted – just the finishing details remainingwhich would be completed when the tub arrivedat Walliswood.

The chassis was ready on time – we collected it fromthe Pescarolo workshop in Le Mans on 8thFebruary – LP - “They’ve done a fantastic job –delivered on time, to spec and at the pricequoted. Pescarolo are the most professionalpeople I’ve dealt with”. Now the build of theLister Pescarolo has started.

However, this will not be a ‘rush’ job to be ready to race by the start of theseason. The Le Mans 24 is not on the agenda for 2007; the intention isa good test programme followed by the final races of the Le MansSeries – Nurburgring, Spa, Silverstone and Brazil. And then a fullracing programme for 2008. This LMP1 has many years of racingahead of it.

Other news – the Lister LMP has been returned to LMP900 specification asraced at Le Mans in 2004; the Lister Storm GT (FIA 2005) has been rebuiltas new, including carbon brakes, traction control; the engine roomhas rebuilt the Jaguar V12 and Corvette V8 engines and has beenrebuilding an historic Alfa engine for a customer.