The penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) takes place in China at the Shanghai track. Eight cars will again compete on Dunlop rubber in the LMP2 class in the race which starts at 11am local time on Saturday 9th November.

Leading the title race is Dunlop-shod Le Mans winning Oak Racing’s #35 Morgan of Baguette, Plowman and Gonzalez. With 52 points still available for two wins and pole positions there are three challengers for the crown. Oak’s sister Morgan, the G-Drive racing Oreca and non-Dunlop contender Pecom Racing are all in with a chance.

G-Drive Racing has the hardest job to do with a 33.5 point deficit, but with Rusinov, Martin and Conway having taken both wins and pole positions at the last two full-points events it is an achievable goal but realistically the #35 would need to have problems in the remaining events. Last year the sister ADR-Delta car won the Shanghai event with John Martin at the wheel in a performance that included setting the fastest LMP2 lap of the race.

The #24 Oak Racing car of Pla, Heinemeier Hansson and Brundle has consistently scored points this season but has so far missed out on a top-step visit to the podium so the squad will be hoping to rectify that at the Chinese round.

Paul Bryant, Key Account Manager, Dunlop Car EU: “For this event we will be taking the medium and hard compound tyres. There is a good chance of rain at some point over the two days on track so intermediates are likely to play a part. Section one of the 5.451km track is quite demanding on the front left where a straight leads into a virtually 360 degree double hairpin so some teams may elect to use a hard compound on that wheel while using medium for the other three. The long straight increases high speed loading and the track has 16 turns so the tyres will be working hard but we know from the race last year that our compounds will work well there.”