Twenty-four cars in four classes will line up for the start of the final round of the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season, the Zhuhai Six Hours in Zuhai, China on November 13.
The 14-turn, 4-km Zhuhai track, the first race course built in China, hosted the season finale in 2010, and will again in 2011.
There will be a bit less excitement this year, as the LMP1, P2 and GTE-Am titles are already decided, but the battle in GTE-Pro between Ferrari and BMW is still on, thought the Italian marque has a nearly insurmountable 28-point lead.
Peugeot has already won the LMP1 Manufacturer’s title, and Signatech Nissan the P2 crown, while Larbre Racing has clinched GTE-Am. That doesn’t mean these teams won’t be competing all-out. Peugeot wants to continue its dominance over Audi by winning every race but Le Mans, and Larbre Racing will want to show well as Corvette Racing factory pilot Olivier Beretta will be sharing the driver’s seat.
For the rest of the fields this will be a last chance to earn a win in 2011. The teams will have a few months to rebuild if anything breaks, so there is no reason to hold back at Zhuhai.
As an added attraction, former two-time Formula One champ Mika Häkkinen will be coming out of retirement to co-drive a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 at Zuhai. Häkkinen will team up with Mercedes-Benz DTM driver Cong Fu-Cheng and Lance David Arnold for the car’s Chinese debut.
The race begins at 11 a.m. local time on Sunday, November 13 (Saturday night in the U.S.)
The Zhuhai race will be broadcast on three channels in China, plus ESPN Star in Southeast Asia. Eurosport will broadcast the end of the race and Eurosport Asia-Pacific will air the entire race live.
The race will also be available via the Internet on the ILMC site and the lemans.org site. Peugeot will stream the race live on www.peugeot-sport.com and www.peugeot.com.cn. No word yet whether Audi will broadcast on its website, but they have for all the other ILMC rounds.
