Olivier Beretta, driver for the ALMS Corvette Racing team, will be joining Larbre Racing to drive their ILMC Corvette in the Zhuhai Six Hours on November 13
Beretta, a five-time Le Man class winner, is the most successful driver in ALMS history, with five GT championships, the most career wins, and the most career poles. Since he started racing in 1999, Beretta has driven everything from Formula One cars to sports prototypes, but most of his successes have come in GT cars.
He will feel right at home behind the wheel of the Larbre Corvette—it is almost identical to his Corvette Racing car, and is built and prepared by the same firm, Pratt and Miller.
Larbre Racing, founded in 1988 by Jack Leconte, had a record to match their new driver’s. The team has four class wins at Le Mans, and a host of series championships: three LMS GT, one ILMC GT1, three FIA GT, and four in the French FFSA series.
The car Beretta will be driving, the Corvette C6-R, finished first in the GTE-Am class at Le Mans this year, with Julien Canal, Patrick Bornhauser and Gabriele Gardel. Beretta will replace Gardel for Zhuhai.
“Larbre has won many global championships and do an excellent job representing GM in the ILMC,” Beretta told SPEED.com. “Zhuhai finally offered me the opportunity to drive for them so it was an easy decision when Jack called to ask. I also know Patrick and Julien quite well. They’re two good drivers with experience so I’ve got high hopes of challenging for victory.”
“It’s fantastic that Olivier will be joining Larbre Competition at Zhuhai next month,” Leconte told SPEED.com. “His level of experience with Corvette makes him the ideal candidate to bolster our driver line-up as we aim to celebrate a fine 2011 campaign by winning the final ILMC round of the year.”
Larbre leads the GTE-Am class by 29 points and seems certain to win its second ILMC championship—one more title for the team, and one more for Olivier Beretta.
