Le Mans Series

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The Le Mans Series (LMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series based around the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and run by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The series was originally named the Le Mans Endurance Series, but changed its name prior to the 2006 season.

It is similar to the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) based in the United States and Canada that has been running with ACO backing since 1999, but is run by IMSA. It is also seen as a rebirth of the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) which was created by IMSA and the ACO, but only ran in 2001. LMS champions and runners up in all four categories receive an automatic entry to the following year's Le Mans 24 Hour Race.

[edit] History

The ACO, seeing the success of the American Le Mans Series but not completely satisfied with the fact that IMSA did not fully comply with the ACO's regulations in order to help attract privateer teams, as well as the failure of the FIA Sportscar Championship to succeed in Europe, decided that a series run by themselves would be a better alternative for Europe. The ACO would instead attempt to attract factory backed teams with longer endurance races than ALMS and FIA SCC ran, but less races in a season to help keep costs down. The series would also be European based instead of international, thus it could be closer to the factories of a large number of sportscar teams to help attract them to the series. Winners of the LMES championship would go on to earn automatic entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, similar to the American Le Mans Series.

The series was initially previewed in an open race run under the LMES banner in 2003 at the 1000km of Le Mans, a one-off event before the season started in 2004.

For the 2004 Le Mans Series season the series participated in four events, including resurrecting classic races like the 1000km Monza, 1000km Nürburgring, and the Spa 1000 km. A large number of competitors turned out, making the racing very exciting.

2005 saw the series expand to a five race format with the addition of the Istanbul Racing Circuit. In 2007, the LMS held its first overseas race with Brazil's Mil Milhas as the sixth round.

[edit] Champions

	LMP1 Team	LMP2 Team	GTS/GT1 Team	GT/GT2 Team
	LMP1 Driver(s)	LMP2 Driver(s)	GTS/GT1 Driver(s)	GT/GT2 Driver(s)
2004	Audi Sport UK Veloqx	Courage Compétition	Larbre Compétition	Sebah Automotive
2004	Johnny Herbert Jamie Davies	Alexander Frei Sam Hancock	Pedro Lamy Christophe Bouchut Steve Zacchia	Roman Rusinov
2005	Pescarolo Sport	Chamberlain-Synergy	BMS Scuderia Italia	Sebah Automotive
2005	Jean-Christophe Boullion Emmanuel Collard	Gareth Evans	Michele Bartyan Christian Pescatori Toni Seiler	Xavier Pompidou Marc Lieb
2006	Pescarolo Sport	Barazi-Epsilon	Aston Martin Larbre	Autorlando Sport
2006	Jean-Christophe Boullion Emmanuel Collard	Juan Barazi Michael Vergers	Pedro Lamy Gabriele Gardel Vincent Vosse	Marc Lieb Joël Camathias
2007	Team Peugeot Total	Ray Mallock Ltd.	Team Oreca	Virgo Motorsport
2007	Stéphane Sarrazin Pedro Lamy	Mike Newton Thomas Erdos	Soheil Ayari Stéphane Ortelli	Robert Bell
2008
2008