The LMP2 team with big aspirations
How entering endurance racing ahead of the game could be about to pay off for one of LMP2’S top teams
One World Endurance Championship crown, three European Le Mans Series titles and two Asian Le Mans Series successes. G-drive Racing has been one of the benchmarks in the LMP2 category for the past decade, and has an overflowing trophy cabinet to prove it. The team has also linked up with Russian luxury automotive brand Aurus and has big plans for the future.
It’s almost 18 years since current managing director Roman Rusinov, fresh from his Euro 3000 single-seater season, got his first taste of international sportscar racing as he stepped into a factory Courage C65 for the end-of-season Le Mans 1000Km, the event that would give birth to the contest we now know as the European Le Mans Series. And while that race was won overall by Seiji Ara and Tom Kristensen in an Audi R8 LMP900, the brand-new Courage finished fourth overall and won the smaller LMP675 class. “It was a crazy race with crazy autumn weather, but I knew this was a magical place,” recalls Rusinov.
It would take him another five years to appear in the greatest endurance race in the world, driving a Lamborghini Murcielago in the GT1 class at the 24 Hours. In between, the Muscovite raced for Team Russia in A1GP and spent two seasons as a Formula 1 test driver. But it was clear that he was bitten by the Le Mans bug, and
a plan was conceived to bring a Russian brand to the classic enduro. “I worked hard to bring Marussia to Le Mans,” says the 39-year-old. “We wanted to build a Marussia GT car and race a Marussia LMP2 car at Le Mans as I knew it would have been the right place for them to build up and promote their brand.”
It was not to be as the Marussia name appeared in F1 instead.
But Rusinov, an intense competitor, was not content to simply race for himself. After his first WEC season he set up his own racing operation with his original ideas still very much alive. A year later he created a partnership with Gazprom Neft to promote its performance brand, and G-drive Racing was born: “If I look back at that first year, it is crazy to see that we won four races in a row and finished a very close third in the championship [in 2013].”
It was the start of a remarkably consistent run that, in the next four seasons, would yield another 12 race victories and the LMP2 WEC crown in 2015, Rusinov sharing with Sam Bird and Julien Canal. That was followed by a hat-trick of ELMS titles between 2016 and 2018. The team has won at least one major LMP2 race every season since it was formed, although Le Mans victory has so far proved elusive. It crossed the line first in 2018 before being stripped of victory due to a fuel-rig irregularity, meaning the team has yet to achieve its ultimate aim.
“If you only look at the results, it is easy to become complacent and almost expect that each year will give you the same sort of
“I’VE BECOME FULL-TIME MANAGER OF A GLOBAL PROGRAMME. RACING IS ALMOST THE RELAXING PART!”
success,” says Rusinov. “But it requires a lot of work behind the scenes to make it work financially.
“I have become a full-time manager of a global programme.
The racing is almost the relaxing part!” adds a smiling Rusinov, who manages a successful organisation while running with different drivers and even teams from one year to another.
Such a business model could prove unstable, but for G-drive Racing it works, especially as it has continuously worked with the same technical team, led by British engineer David Leach.
“You can rarely achieve such stability, and it’s an engineer’s dream to be able to work through your ideas over a longer period than you are usually awarded,” says Leach.
And because the programme has moved between teams, with operations such as Jota, Graff and TDS Racing having been tasked with the day-to-day running of the cars, it has continuously learned and evolved into the juggernaut it has become. “Our set-up gives us the luxury to continuously work with the team on our car performance – it’s a privileged position,” adds Leach.
It’s a model that was unique when it was launched by Rusinov eight years ago, and is continuing into 2021. G-drive recently formed a partnership with Algarve Pro Racing, with two Aurus 01 LMP2S entered for the ALMS and the ELMS.
When it was announced in 2019 that G-drive had teamed up with Aurus, best known for the development of the Russian presidential limousine, it was not simply bringing in another Russian partner to the table. The team took full advantage of the manufacturer’s engineering tools to further enhance G-drive Racing’s technical arsenal while creating a global marketing platform for both brands.
The team’s ORECA 07 was rebranded as the Aurus 01 to take on a strong LMP2 field. The new partnership took pole position at the European Le Mans Series opener at Paul Ricard, and Rusinov and Job van Uitert nearly won the title before G-drive headed out to the ALMS and won the 2019-20 crown.
“It was the right time for Aurus to jump into endurance racing,” reckons Rusinov. “Endurance racing, and the Le Mans 24 Hours in particular, have always had a romantic appeal to fans and automotive brands alike. One only has to look at the success of the recent Le Mans ’66 film to understand that there is something to this sport that sets it apart from anything else.”
And the fact that in recent times the sport had failed to attract new manufacturers proved to Rusinov that this was the right moment to convince Aurus to move into LMP2: “In any business, it is best to enter the market when it’s at a low point. In that respect, Aurus has been more than an early adapter and it’s now clear it was the right move for Aurus to become involved.”
That market now appears to be taking off, with the Automobile Club de l’ouest and its American counterpart IMSA settling on a set of regulations for the future of the discipline that should ensure a healthy influx of marques for the top class. With
Porsche, Audi, Toyota, Peugeot and Honda already confirmed, a new era of sportscar racing is about to begin.
“It takes away so many hurdles,” enthuses Rusinov. “If a manufacturer wants to develop and build everything themselves, they race a Hypercar at Le Mans. If they want to develop a programme that doesn’t cost as much as a Formula 1 operation and want to race in multiple championships, you race an LMDH. And with so many big brands involved, the entire landscape of the sport has changed. That is why it was so important for us and Aurus to already be a player on this stage because right now the market, and with that the global interest in endurance racing, is starting to boom!”
And this surge of interest has also impacted the LMP2 class. “LMP2 has become incredibly competitive over the past few years, and teams are now working to achieve factory-team levels of quality,” he adds. But Rusinov also sees a direct effect of the new rules as the reason for new teams and drivers stepping into
LMP2: “Manufacturers are moving teams and drivers in to get ready for the new top class, and this has a snowball effect because suddenly people realise that LMP2 is the most cost-effective way to show you are ready for the top class.”
It begs the question: will Aurus become the next automotive manufacturer to move into the top class? “I am asked this quite often,” Rusinov smiles. “People have suddenly understood that this programme makes a lot of sense and a future move to the LMDH category is very, very interesting. It multiplies the global impact G-drive Racing can have for our partners.”
But as 18 years of sportscar racing have shown, Rusinov is anything but a big risk-taker. He prefers to build strong foundations: “We have started the general LMDH discussion, but a lot of questions need to be answered before those discussions become more serious.”
Among those are which next-generation LMP2 chassis will prove the strongest base, as well as what a sensible budget comes down to in a class filled with factory teams and drivers. And more fundamentally, what the best route is for G-drive itself. “I believe it would be a big and important step to welcome a Russian manufacturer into LMDH, and if we could build the partnership with Aurus to a point where we can manage such a factory programme, as a Russian, it would be very special,” says Rusinov.
But he is also realistic: “Moving from LMP2 into a manufacturer programme is a big step and represents a large commitment.”
Should the luxury manufacturer opt against such a move,
“ENDURANCE RACING, AND LE MANS IN PARTICULAR, HAS ALWAYS HAD A ROMANTIC APPEAL TO FANS”
there is still a path for a successful partnership between Rusinov and his main partner: “When we started, the idea was to promote our Gazprom Neft’s premium fuel on the world stage. These new regulations present us with many new opportunities to be successful in the biggest motorsport event in the world. And given the fact that the Russian automotive market is the seventh largest in the world, a collaboration with a brand like Audi or Porsche would also make sense for the team.”
As would Rusinov’s other big dream, a World Endurance race in Russia: “St Petersburg would be the ultimate venue for such an event, and it is a long-term project we continue working on.”
For the immediate future, the focus remains on the 2021 season. “We have entered two cars in the ALMS as well as the ELMS,” confirms Rusinov, who now spends more time managing the project than he does behind the wheel. “I want the team to defend our crown in Asia [which it successfully did last weekend] and regain it in Europe. I believe we have everything in place to achieve that aim.”
But with the competition in the LMP2 class becoming fiercer each year – United Autosports became the pacesetter in 2019-20 following its switch to ORECA chassis – the team has its work cut out, especially at Le Mans.
“The biggest race in the world hasn’t always been kind to us,” admits Rusinov. “Looking back only at our two starts with the Aurus, we were dominating in 2019 and well in contention last year before electrical issues hit. We have been close a few times, so if we start, the aim can only be to win it. Nothing else will do.”