In sportscar racing, most chassis are doomed to obscurity, competing in only a few events before being wrecked, or sold into private collections never to be raced again. But, among this endless list of unremarkable cars, some rise to the top, due to their unique achievements. Some are notable due to their successes; every chassis that wins its class at Le Mans is instantly one of the greats. Others gain their fame through who drives them, like Steve McQueen’s 917 from the film Le Mans. However, those aren’t the chassis that garner the most interest from me. I prefer the cars that exhibit the ‘endurance’ aspect of endurance sportscar racing. These cars last far longer than their peers and, despite not accruing as many accolades, are still able to make their way into the record books through the sheer volume of races they have entered.
One of these cars is Oreca 07 chassis #05, unsurprisingly, the 5th Oreca 07 ever to be built. To the uninitiated, the 07 has risen, over the years, to become the dominant force in the LMP2 class, to such an extent that this class is sometimes jokingly referred to as the ‘Oreca Cup’. This, alongside the fact that the regulations have been unchanged since 2017, has allowed chassis #05 to compete at the highest level of endurance racing for a far longer time than most chassis.
To understand the scale of this chassis’ achievements, I would like to take you through its competitive history, from 2017 all the way up to the present day. Through the length of which, the impressive nature of chassis #05’s career should become apparent.
2017 Season
The Oreca 07 made its competitive debut at the 2017 Rolex 24 At Daytona, 3 of them were entered, but Chassis 05 was not among them. It instead made its first appearance at the 07’s European debut, the European Le Mans Series official pre-season test at Monza. 05 was owned by Graff, a French team based in the suburbs of Paris, who had bought it from Oreca.
At the test it was driven by the all-French trio of Paul Petit, Eric Trouillet, and Enzo Guibbert, who had collectively just come off second in the 2016 ELMS LMP3 championship. The test took place over 5 sessions on the 28th and 29th of March, and 05 set the third best time overall, a 1:36.839, just under 4 tenths slower than the fastest time set by an IDEC Sport-operated Ligier JS P217. The car bore the number 39, and a striking blue, white and red livery that it would retain for the whole 2017 ELMS campaign.
Chassis #05’s first competitive outing came at the Silverstone 4 Hours in April, where it secured a promising 3rd place grid position with a time of 1:45.163 in qualifying. However, the car fell a lap down and finished 7th, out of 11 LMP2s that finished the race.
At the subsequent Monza 4 Hours in May 05 continued its excellent one-lap form with its first pole position, a 1:36.526 that sat a tenth beyond any of its competition. Early in the race it looked like it would be able to convert this pole into a win, but poor strategy during a mid-race Full Course Yellow dropped it down the order. The car came home in 4th position, a promising sign as Graff looked forward to Le Mans. The pole position that chassis #05 won at this event would end up being the only one of its career so far.
For Le Mans, Paul Petit was subbed out for James Winslow, a journeyman driver who had most recently raced with Graff at the previous year’s Gulf 12 Hours, winning the race in the LMP3 class. The livery was also updated to include green flashes to acknowledge the team’s sponsor for Le Mans, Lucas Automotive Batteries.
During the pre-event test held on the 4th of June, the car set the 6th slowest time in the LMP2 class, a full 6 seconds slower than the pace-setting Alpine A470. However, when it came to the event itself, the car’s pace improved. In qualifying, it cut its deficit in half and was only 3 seconds off the LMP2 pace, securing an 18th place slot on the overall grid. Despite the high attrition of the 2017 edition in the LMP1 class, the LMP2 field was competitive. This makes it even more disappointing that chassis 05 finished 43rd overall, 18th in LMP2, and 48 laps behind the class-winner.
After its underwhelming performance at its Le Mans debut, Chassis #05 bounced back in a big way. Paul Petit returned after James Winslow’s Le Mans-only performance. And, in the following 2 ELMS rounds, the 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring and Paul Ricard, the team secured back-to-back 3rd place finishes. The first of these at the Red Bull Ring, came from a grid position of 13th, stone last in the LMP2 field, making it even more impressive. These two strong finishes served to rocket the team up to 3rd in the Championship, up from 5th after Monza. But it was still 19 points behind the United Autosports #32 in second place, so progression did not look likely.
For the penultimate round of the 2017 ELMS, held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in September, Eric Trouillet was replaced by the Swiss driver Jonathan Hirschi, who had been racing earlier in the season for CEFC Manor TRS Racing in the World Endurance championship. The team qualified a promising third, but eventually came home in 6th, a minute behind the sister Graff car in first.
The revolving door of drivers continued for chassis #05’s last competitive outing in 2017, when Hirschi was himself replaced by Ricardo Sanchez. He was the 2014 Gran Turismo academy winner and had previously raced in the Blancpain endurance series with Team RJN. Unfortunately, the Portimão 4 Hours would bring the car’s first DNF. Just after the 3-hour mark of the race, whilst being driven by Enzo Guibbert, the car spun on the exit of the last corner and collided with the pit-entry, ruling it out of the remainder of the race.
The team ended up back in 5th place in the LMP2 teams’ championship, with Guibbert and Petit coming 7th in the drivers’ championship. It was a competitive, but unremarkable first season of competition for chassis #05, and would serve as the springboard for the start of an extensive career.
2018 Season
Graff was able to rebuild chassis #05 over the off-season and it returned to service in the following ELMS season. Though it still ran under the number 39, its livery underwent some tweaks, adding more black areas and new sponsors.
The car was to be driven by the Frenchmen, Alexandre Cougnaud, who had spent 2017 in the ELMS driving an LMP3 for M.Racing, and Tristan Gommendy, who had previously run an Oreca 07 in the WEC with Jackie Chan DC Racing the previous year. Returning from his one-off outing at Spa, Jonathan Hirschi would complete the lineup.
After posting the 13th best time in pre-season testing, the team followed this up with another 13th place in Qualifying for the season-opening 4 Hours of Le Castellet at Circuit Paul Ricard. They did improve to 10th in the race, but 2018 appeared to be a step backwards for the team.
At the second race of the season at Monza, chassis #05 suffered its second career DNF, retiring after only 7 laps. Whilst Cougnaud was at the wheel, the car suffered an unspecified technical problem, before spearing off into the tire wall. It had qualified 9th, and due to the high rate of attrition in this race, could have made something of it had it not been for this issue.
Then came chassis #05’s second entry into the Le Mans 24. At the official test day, the three full-season drivers were joined by Vincent Capillaire, who eventually was selected to replace Cougnaud for the twice round the clock classic. In qualifying, the car clocked in 8th in LMP2, earning it a 17th place grid spot overall.
The 2018 24 Hours, much like the previous edition, was plagued with reliability issues and accidents, with nearly a third of competitors failing to see the chequered flag. Chassis #05 and its team were able to capitalise on this and came an impressive 6th overall and 2nd in LMP2, just missing out on class honours to the #36 Alpine A470. This would end up being chassis #05’s best finish at Le Mans to date.
The rest of the 2018 season was not awfully notable, the chassis secured 3 8th places and a 4th in the last 4 races of the season to wind it up in 11th in the LMP2 teams’ championship. Cougnaud, Gommendy, and Hirschi found themselves down in 14th place in the LMP2 drivers’ championship. James Allen of G-Drive was the only driver beneath them who also completed the whole season.
This season typified chassis #05’s career. Flashes of brilliance and a whole lot of mediocrity. One may suppose that it serves as a kind of microcosm of the entirety of racing. There are occasional moments of remarkable success and spectacular failure, but most of the sport comprises drivers and cars quietly plying their trade somewhere in the middle.
2019 Season
Moving on from that slightly flowery detour, chassis #05 returned in 2019 for what would now be its third ELMS campaign. Cougnaud, Hirschi, and Gommendy would also return, as well as its number 29. The livery would undergo some small tweaks for this season but broadly remain the same
The first two races of the season at Paul Ricard and Monza were promising but not astounding. A pair of two 5th place finishes landed the team, not in 5th, but in 6th in the championship, but only 6 points, well within striking distance of 3rd. This gave the team some good momentum as they headed for Le Sarthe for chassis #05’s third visit to Le Mans.
Capillaire again joined the team for the test day, who yet again ended up replacing Cougnaud for the event proper. The team qualified the car in an underwhelming 14th place in class, which ended up 22nd place overall. The team improved to 9th in class and 14th overall but ended up 6 laps behind the leading LMP2, which was again an Alpine A470.
One would think that this mid-pack performance at Le Mans would encourage a continuation of the team’s mediocre form in the ELMS. But this could not have ended up being even further from the truth.
At the first race back after Le Mans, the 4 Hours of Barcelona, the team started in 5th and fought their way up to 2nd in an impressive display. The next three races also yielded podiums, with a trio of third places rounding out the season.
In the last four races of the 2019 ELMS, chassis #05 was the only car to come home in a podium position in all four races. And, though it was still yet to win a race, this earned it third position in the LMP2 teams’ championship. Certainly, an impressive feat. The drivers also finished 3rd in their respective championships.
After this season, things were certainly looking up for chassis #05 and its crew. A 5th place in the ELMS teams’ championship in 2018 being followed by a 3rd in 2019 showed growth, and they were certainly amongst the possibilities of who would win in 2020.
2020 Season
Going into this season, the only constant in the lineup was Alexandre Cougnaud. Hirschi and Gommendy were replaced by Thomas Laurent, who’d spend the back end of the 2019 season with Alpine, and James Allen, the only driver who had fared worse over the full ELMS season than the #05’s drivers back in 2018. Allen had had an inconsistent season in 2019 with DragonSpeed, but would hopefully bring some pace to chassis #05’s crew.
After Coronavirus lockdowns had delayed the start of the season to July, chassis #05 started its 2020 campaign with an unremarkable 9th place at Paul Ricard. However, this brief lack of form quickly resolved itself and the team returned to its podium finishing days with a 2nd at Spa and a 3rd at the ELMS’ second visit to Paul Ricard. This meant that, on the eve of the 24h of Le Mans, the team sat in a comfortable 4th place in the championship, with as high as second well within reach.
For the 24-Hour classic, the team was to be sponsored by Sarthe Objectif 24 or ‘SO24”, a programme with the goal of getting people from the Sarthe region of France to compete in the Le Mans 24. The driver who would fulfil this objectif would be Vincent Capillaire, who was brought in to replace Cougnaud in a move that seemed to have almost become tradition. Also, Charles Milesi was to replace Thomas Laurent. This would be Milesi’s first competitive outing not in an open-wheel car.
The team qualified 13th in LMP2, which earned them an 18th place grid slot. However, the car unfortunately suffered a DNF, not 45 minutes from the finish. This was due to damage the car had sustained from contact with another vehicle. In all its starts, this remains chassis #05’s only non-finish at Le Mans.
Following Le Mans, the team’s ELMS results regressed to the level of the first race at Paul Ricard. A 9th place at Monza followed by a 7th at Portimão torpedoed their chances of a championship, or even vice-championship run.
The team ended up in 5th place in the LMP2 teams’ championship, back where they had been in 2018, undoing the growth of the past year. The drivers ended up down in 6th in their championship, but only because of future F1 driver Nyck de Vries’ sporadic appearances for G-Drive pushing them down a spot.
2021 Season
Moving forward, there seemed to be 2 ways the team could go, bounce back to the form they’d experienced in late 2019 and early 2020, or fall even further into mid-pack obscurity. To help with this, the car did get a brighter and fresher version of its tried and trusted livery for 2021, with expanded white elements.
Graff also refreshed the lineup of the car, with serial Le Mans one-off Vincent Capillaire now joining the team for the full season. He was to be joined by the brothers Maxime and Arnold Robin. This trio had spent the previous season in a Graff-run Ligier JS P320 and had collectively come 7th in the LMP3 drivers’ championship.
Unfortunately, despite the refresh of both crew and livery, chassis #05’s results over the course of the season were far from satisfactory. Its highest finish across the four ELMS events before Le Mans was a 13th place at the 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring, and this was in a field of 16 LMP2 cars.
Despite not faring awfully well in the overall LMP2 classification, the team was entered into the new for 2021 sub-class of LMP2 Pro-Am. But their results did not translate into being any more favourable as, after the 4 Hours of Monza, the team sat in 6th in the championship. That was stone last of the teams that had contested all four of the races up to that point.
After making a brief appearance in the practice sessions of an Ultimate Cup Series race at Paul Ricard, driven by Hubert Haupt, owner of the famous Haupt Racing team (HRT), it was time for chassis #05 to make its fifth trip to Le Mans.
For the first time, the car’s lineup for the 24-hour race would remain unchanged from its full-season lineup. And the form from its full-season lineup did seem to have carried over. The team had an anonymous Le Mans this year, finishing 14th in LMP2 and 5th in LMP2 Pro-Am. Neither of these positions was plum last, but they weren’t that far off it.
Chassis #05 returned in October for the finale of the ELMS at Portimão, having missed the Spa round for unknown reasons. The team capped off their campaign with a season high 12th place in the overall classification. This landed chassis #05 in 14th place in the overall teams’ championship, and 5th in Pro-Am. Both results were the lowest of any car to contest as many races as it did.
2022 Season
Perhaps to start anew, Graff bought a new Oreca 07 chassis for 2022 to replace #05, that seemed to be showing its age. This was chassis #76, previously owned by Association SRT41 who had run it in the last two 24h Le Mans. #05 was kept on by Graff as a spare chassis.
Whilst all of this had been happening, DKR Engineering, a team based out of the small nation of Luxembourg, had been winning the ELMS LMP3 championship and the Le Mans auto-invite that comes with it. However, LMP3s don’t run at Le Mans, so the entry was valid for the LMP2 class.
DKR did not own an LMP2 chassis at the time, so to honour their Le Mans invitation, they had to rent chassis #05 from Graff. For the first time in its career, chassis #05 ran a number other than 39, with DKR choosing to run the number 3. The car was kitted out in a new clownfish-esque livery and was ready to go.
The car was to be driven by; Laurents Hörr, who’d won the LMP3 ELMS drivers’ championship with DKR the previous season, Jean Glorieux, another DKR LMP3 regular in the Asian Le Mans Series, and, returning to chassis #05 after a season-long absence, Alexandre Cougnaud.
The car was again entered into the LMP2 Pro-Am sub-class for the race. Within this category it posted the second fastest time over the Le Mans test day, just over 2 seconds behind the overall LMP2 pace set by the Oreca of United Autosports USA.
For the race proper, it qualified poorly and had to start down on the 13th row of the grid in 25th place. However, the crew was able to claw their way back up the order and chassis #05 ended up 18th in LMP2. This was good enough for 3rd in Pro-Am and gave the chassis its second Le Mans class podium.
Following Le Mans, with a view to competing in LMP2 outside of just the marquee race, DKR purchased chassis #05 from Graff permanently. The team did not waste any time putting it to work, as it was entered into the 2023 Asian Le Mans Series the subsequent February.
2023 Season
The car kept the number 3 and the clownfish livery, but the driver lineup was entirely overhauled. The Turkish pair of Salih Yoluc, who’d spent 2022 racing with his own team, the aptly named Racing Team Turkey, and Porsche factory ace Ayhancan Güven, were backed up by Yoluc’s longtime teammate, the Irishman Charlie Eastwood.
The team started its campaign off strongly, converting a 2nd place grid position into a 2nd place in the final classification in the first of two 4-hour races that weekend in Dubai. They followed this up with another 2nd from 2nd, which placed them just one point off Algarve Pro Racing for the LMP2 Teams’ trophy lead.
The following weekend at the twin 4 hours of Abu Dhabi, the team started in its preferred second slot on the grid, but this time came home third. A solid result, but not necessarily championship-winning stuff. The day after, the team started in 3rd place and came home in 1st, only 1.903 seconds ahead of the 99 Racing entry. This was chassis #05’s first, and so far, only, overall victory in any of the races it has entered since 2017.
Through their 100% podium rate, DKR was rewarded with the LMP2 Teams’ Trophy, by a resounding 22-point margin. This championship also carried with it an automatic invite to that summer’s 24h Le Mans, securing chassis #05’s 7th consecutive trip to le Sarthe.
Before that, the team still had to contest the European Le Mans Series. For this championship, the car was given a livery refresh, sporting the national colours of Belgium for the full-season driver Tom van Rompuy
The car would, again, be entered in the Pro-Am category, and van Rompuy would be joined by the Mexican Sebastian Alvarez, who’d also been his teammate in DKR’s Duqueine LMP3 in 2022. These two would be reinforced by the Frenchman Nathanaël Berthon, who’d spent most of the previous seasons in the World Touring Car Cup with ComToYou Racing.
Only one round of the ELMS happened before Le Mans this season, the 4 Hours of Barcelona. This was due to the 2023 Emilia-Romagna floods causing the cancellation of the planned Imola round in May. The team came firmly mid-pack, securing fifth place in LMP2 Pro-Am, and the corresponding position in the championship. This ambiguous result left the doors open for anything to happen at Le Mans.
For the 24 Hours, van Rompuy was the only driver consistent with the ELMS crew. Berthon was drafted into the second Glickenhaus Hypercar entry and was unable to compete for DKR, and Alvarez was subbed out. Replacing them were the longtime Mühlner Motorsport driver Ugo de Wilde, and BMW factory driver Maxime Martin. This made chassis #05’s lineup all-Belgian. The car also switched from its usual number 3 to 43, to avoid clashing with the Chip Ganassi Cadillac Hypercar entry.
During the official test, the car set a time 2 seconds off the LMP2 Pro-Am pace but improved 1.5 seconds behind during qualifying. This put it in the 33rd spot on the overall grid. Over the race, it moved up just a single position to finish 32nd in the overall classification. However, in its class it did claim yet another podium.
The third place in LMP2 Pro-Am, and the champagne that came with it, may seem impressive, and a third career class podium at Le Mans certainly is, but it is important to note that only 4 cars ended up taking the chequered flag in this class.
For the remainder of the 2023 ELMS season, chassis #05 seemed to be mimicking its form from its last visit to the championship back in 2021. The car’s finishes ranged from 11th to 16th in the overall classification, but it never seemed to challenge for anything worth noting.
One of the few things to note was that the Greek driver Andreas Laskaratos made a substitute appearance at the 4 Hours of Aragón, replacing van Rompuy for the race at the Spanish circuit.
Even when these results are considered in the context of the LMP2 Pro-Am class, they still weren’t anything to write home about, the highlight of the rest of the season was a P6 at the second race of the season-ending double header at Portimão. The only achievement was not finishing as the worst full-season entry in the teams’ championship. That dubious honour went to the #19 Team Virage entry.
Moving back to the championship where chassis #05 had enjoyed far more success, it was time for the 2023-24 Asian Le Mans Series. For this season, the car was to be driven by one of the drivers of the aforementioned terrible Virage ELMS entry, Alexander Mattschull, who’d spend several seasons prior in the Le Mans Cup driving an LMP3.
Mattschull would be joined by the Frenchman Tom Dillmann, who’d spent his 2023 with the ill-fated Vanwall Hypercar programme. Completing the lineup would be Laurents Hörr, hoping to repeat the success he’d had with chassis #05 the previous AsLMS season.
The team extended their Asian Le Mans Series podium streak to five with a third place in the first 4-hour race at Sepang, 18 seconds behind the race-winning 99 Racing entry. Unfortunately, this podium streak was extinguished as soon as it was reignited, with the team coming 6th in the second race the subsequent day.
2024 Season
The championship then moved into 2024, and to the middle east, with a single 4-hour race at Dubai Autodrome. The team qualified in 8th but recovered to 4th place, just off the podium.
The very next week, the championship arrived in Abu Dhabi for a pair of 4-hour races at Yas Marina. The team continued the trend of halving its grid position, starting in 6th and making its way back to the podium in third place in the first race. They were able to replicate this feat in the second race, starting in 6th but finishing in 4th, 40 seconds behind third place.
The team’s consistency was rewarded with a 4th place in the LMP2 teams’ championship, the exact same number as their average finish that season.
Moving on to the 2024 ELMS, DKR retained Hörr, but the rest of the lineup was all-new. The Colombian-born Australian Andrés Latorre Canon moved up from an LMP3 drive with Inter Europol the previous season. Cem Bölükbaşı, the third Turk to drive chassis #05, completed the lineup, moving back to sportscars having spent 2023 making little impression on the Japanese Super Formula championship.
The car also wore a revised livery, swapping the Belgian red-yellow-black for DKR’s usual orange and white colourway.
In the two races before Le Mans that season, held at Barcelona and Paul Ricard, chassis #05 went back to making little impression on the LMP2 Pro-Am field, finishing 6th and 8th place in class, respectively.
Just before Le Mans, a car suspected to be chassis #05 made a brief appearance at a private test held at Spa-Francorchamps, without a livery, carbon exposed. It was driven by Alexander Mattschull, who was set to compete in it at Le Mans.
Alongside Mattschull, Laurents Hörr remained the only constant from the car’s ELMS crew. The Austrian René Binder was brought in from Proton’s full-season ELMS squad to complete chassis #05’s crew for Le Mans.
For Le Mans, the car had to, yet again, change its number to avoid clashing with the yellow CGR Cadillac. This year the team chose 33, rather than 43. To continue with the theme of change, the team also ran a one-off camouflage-esque livery
In qualifying, the team was able to turn their previous form around, coming in 7th in LMP2, and 4th in LMP2 Pro-Am. During the race, the team scored yet another 3rd place in that class, completing their three-peat of LMP2 Pro-Am thirds. This was out of a slightly more competitive 6 cars classified in class.
Back in the ELMS, the team continued their profound mediocrity at any racetrack not called Le Mans, scoring a pair of 5th places at Imola and Spa. They DNF’d 10 minutes into the race at Mugello due to Latorre losing the car under braking. At the season finale in Portimão, they rounded off the season with 7th place in class. This ended them up stone last in the LMP2 championship, a fate chassis #05 had, up to this point, avoided.
Now, back to #05’s most recent championship appearance, the 2024-25 Asian Le Mans Series. Hörr was yet again retained, and was joined by Georgios-Periklis Kolovos of Greece, who’d spent 2024 in various championships with Virage. The crew was completed by Job van Uitert, a Dutchman who’d split his 2024 between ComToYou racing in GT World Challenge Europe and IDEC Sport in the ELMS. It appeared that the team’s prior AsLMS luck had run out with a 7th and a 9th place in the two races at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.
2025 Season
Moving into the new year, their luck improved with the team scoring second place in the first Dubai 4-hour race, chassis #05’s highest finish since its win at Yas Marina in 2023. The second 4 Hours of Dubai did not yield the same results, with a 9th place, chassis #05’s worst ever result in an AsLMS race.
At time of writing, chassis #05 has just competed in the 2025 4 Hours of Yas Marina at Abu Dhabi. In the first of the two races, the car started in 7th place but had to retire just 4 minutes from the end with a suspension failure. The team repaired the car for the second race of the weekend and again started in 7th. Unfortunately, history wound up repeating itself with the car’s front-left suspension giving up 20 minutes from the end. This is the first time chassis #05 has had two consecutive DNFs in its history
Looking forward, DKR is entered in for the 2025 ELMS, with only Laurents Hörr confirmed. If he completes the season, he is set to overtake Alexandre Cougnaud as the driver with the most starts in #05. More importantly, its streak of 8 consecutive Le Mans starts seems to be increasingly at risk. 9 spots are reserved for LMP2s at the 2025 24 Hours, 6 of which have already been taken up by automatic invites, of which DKR has not received one.
Hopefully, the Le Mans selection committee will allow DKR and chassis #05 to compete, but we are still awaiting that decision.
Conclusion
So, to conclude let’s go through some of chassis #05’s career statistics to date. It has competed in 71 race weekends, only 1 of which it did not start in, an Ultimate Cup Series race at Paul Ricard in 2021. Out of these 70 race starts, it only retired in 6 of them, leaving it with a 91.4% finishing rate. As previously mentioned Alexandre Cougnaud has the most starts in chassis #05, with 23, but Laurents Hörr is quickly catching up with 22. It is the most prolific Oreca 07, with 22 more starts than second place, chassis #44.
In terms of its 8 Le Mans starts, for this it is sitting equal with Sauber SHS C6 82-C6-02, but that chassis completed its 8 starts between 1982 and 1994. So, Oreca 07 chassis #05 does hold the record for most consecutive starts at Le Mans. For this, it certainly deserves a place in the record books, and an inflated price if and when DKR chooses to sell it to a collector.