Wayne Boyd feels confident that hard work will pay off in Le Mans Cup

Wayne Boyd is aiming to close the gap to his rivals

Jason Craig

Templepatrick’s Wayne Boyd says a plan is in place that should allow Nielsen Racing to close the gap to its LMP3 rivals at the second round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup in France this weekend.

Boyd and Tony Wells – his new team-mate for 2024 – have been working hard behind the scenes with mechanics following their eighth-place result at the opening race of the season in April.

The duo managed to finish inside the points scoring places at Circuit de Catalunya in Spain despite their No.7 machine sustaining some damage as it jostled for track position with another car.

Led by Tommy Foster and Jen Moller, Danish team High Class Racing scored a hard-fought maiden victory from the pole sitting R-Ace GP Duqueine car, with Interpol Europe Competition rounding out the podium spots.

“I think the fact we completed zero pre-season testing – and pretty much all of the teams that finished ahead of us has done quite a bit – we can be quite pleased to finish where we did,” said Boyd.

“It is obviously not where we want to be, we want to be fighting for the wins, but for the opening race, I think we did pretty well in Barcelona. We obviously have stuff to work on, but we have a plan going into this weekend to improve. I think we should be in the window and be competitive.”

Circuit Paul Ricard in the South of France plays host to a 41-car grid, with Saturday’s qualifying session at 11.55am UK time deciding who starts where for the race, which is set to go live around 4.50pm.

With a weekend’s worth of track time under their belt, and a better understanding of the direction of travel they are going in with their Ligier JS P320 , Boyd feels they can move up the leaderboard.

“We should be much faster in France and be able to get on with it more quickly,” he said. “It has been a really positive start, and I’m really enjoying being with Nielsen Racing and the atmosphere.

“Hopefully, we can get the kind of result we want we feel we are capable of this weekend. A win is what we want, but if we can be fighting at the front, it would be a good step forward for us.”

French teams ANS Motorsport and MV2S Racing are both running a two-car effort, with ANS Motorsport featuring an all-French driver line-up in both of their cars. M Racing and IDEC Sport, meanwhile, are entering a car apiece, with both crews also running under the French Tricolour.