Le Mans Endurance Series 1000km of Nürburgring 2nd & 3rd July 2004 Round two of the LMES approaches and Dunlop’s teams are growing in numbers.

Three new entrants to the series have chosen Dunlop, all of whom are in the LMP2 class: Palmyr, Renauer Motorsport and Tracsport.

The Nürburgring track presents its own unique challenges for the teams, particularly the unpredictable and fast changing weather conditions. With anything possible Dunlop has to prepared for all eventualities and will be taking the usual variety of tyres in all the combination of weather and compound combinations that the 20 cars, nearly half of the 41 grid, might need for the practices, qualifying and warm-up sessions as well as the race – over nine hours of running time.

One of Dunlop’s front runners at Le Mans earlier this month was Martin Short in the Rollcentre Racing Dallara. Following his major accident he’s upbeat about the race:

“The team have been working really hard to build the spare car – basically it’s a brand new car after 75% of the old car was destroyed in the accident. The positives from Le Mans were that we were running in fourth place after 15 hours. The team tactics, strategy and management of the race were spot on and we were delighted to be one of the top privateers and on such a strong pace.

Nürburgring’s going to be a whole new challenge. We’ve got a new driver in Patrick Pearce who’s raced with me in the Mosler – a bright young prospect. All three of us [with Joao Barbosa] tested at Silverstone and it went well. I’m hopeful of performing well but none of us have driven there so we haven’t got long to set up the car and learn the track. The DBA Zytek’s going to be quick with it being a high downforce track but the Dallara’s a strong and capable car and I hope to be up there.