CREATION OFFICIAL TESTING IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

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This past weekend in the south of France, along with 24 other teams (31 cars), leading British Race / Manufacturer Creation Autosportif descended on 'High Tech Test Track Paul Ricard' in the Le Castellet region, to begin the first 'official' Le Mans Series test days.

This would be the first opportunity the Creation staff and drivers (Jamie Campbell-Walter, Felipe Ortiz and Stuart Hall) would have to see how the fruits of the off-season development work would show against all of their rivals with the exception of the factory Peugeot team who are missing the test in preparation for the Sebring 12 Hours (in Florida) in a couple of weeks.

As it turned out, the test was a huge success for the small team form Bicester, UK, rounding out the 2 test days in a strong 3rd place overall, just behind the 2 factory Audi diesel LMP1 cars, thus in turn making the Creation fastest of the petrol driven cars, which is actually 95% of the grid. Needless to say Creation's Ian Bickerton and the team were ecstatic with the performance of the team's brand new 5.5 litre V10 AIM engine (see image) which showed no problems at all during the weekend. Other changes made to the CA07 chassis over the winter break include new suspension and pick up points (see images) and a new cooling intake on each side of the car's pontoons (see image).

Bickerton: "As you can see we have made some aerodynamic changes and updates, and during these test days we will test the car in high and low down force, emulating a 'Le Mans circuit low drag configuration' which is something we can do effectively at this track. There are other small changes, such as the pick up and anchorage points and a new suspension package. The new AIM engine gives us great satisfaction! Here at Ricard we are running the 'Le Mans' configuration so its not quite a fast as the sprint engine, but as you can see from the times its very competitive. Our partnership with AIM is very strong, they are totally behind this project".

Bickerton: With regards to the car, it will have a brand new design for the first race. We reverted to the 'electric blue' colour for the winter period but we'll unveil a brand new look for Barcelona!"

Bickerton: Regarding the Le Mans 24 hours entry, yes we have one car confirmed, but we are disappointed with the second car being 5th reserve, especially when 3 cars who are confirmed on the entry have not even turned a wheel yet, but it is what it is!".
Top 25 after 2 days of testing at HTTT Paul Ricard:


POS No Team TIME

1 - 1 Audi Sport Team Joest LMP1 01:39.705

2 - 2 Audi Sport Team Joest LMP1 01:40.777

3 - 14 Creation Autosportif LMP1 01:42.174

Creation will continue with a private 'Dunlop tyre test' in Paul Ricard this week.