Lanzante Limited is a British automotive company specializing in service and

restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

of classic cars, while also participating in

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

in both modern and

historic History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

guises under the Lanzante Motorsport title. Founded by Paul Lanzante in the 1970s, the company is now led by his son Dean Lanzante out of their workshops in

Petersfield Petersfield is a market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is north of Portsmouth. The town has its own railway station on the Portsmouth Direct line, the mainline rail link connecting Portsmouth a ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Lanzante Motorsport won the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans with a

McLaren F1 GTR The McLaren F1 GTR is the racing variant of the McLaren F1 sports car first produced in 1995 for grand touring style racing, such as the BPR Global GT Series, FIA GT Championship, JGTC, and British GT Championship. It was powered by the nat ...

for

McLaren Automotive McLaren Automotive (formerly known as McLaren Cars) is a British luxury automotive manufacturer based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England. The main products of the company are supercars, which are produced in-house in designat ...

under the name of Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing, leading to Lanzante becoming a service center for road and race McLarens.

Motorsport history

Following years of participation in

historic motorsport Historic motorsport or vintage motorsport, is motorsport with vehicles limited to a particular era. Only safety precautions are modernized in these hobbyist races. A historical event can be of various types of motorsport disciplines, from roa ...

, Lanzante moved to modern racing by entering the

BPR Global GT Series The BPR Global GT Series (sometimes referred to as the BPR Global GT Endurance Series or simply abbreviated as BPR.) was a grand tourer-based sports car racing series which ran from 1994 to 1996 before becoming the FIA GT Championship in 1997. The ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

with a

Porsche 911 Turbo The Porsche 911 (pronounced ''Nine Eleven'' or in german: Neunelfer) is a two-door 2+2 high performance rear-engined sports car introduced in September 1964 by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. It has a rear-mounted flat-six engine and ori ...

competing in the GT3 category with drivers Paul Burdell, Wido Rössler, and

Soames Langton Soames or Somes may refer to: People * Abraham Somes (1732-1819), an American soldier and pioneer in present-day Maine * Arthur Granville Soames, OBE (1886–1962), a member of HM's Coldstream Guards and father of Christopher Soames, Baron Soame ...

. In the same year, the

was debuting in BPR, as well as entering the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

. McLaren's developmental car was loaned to an entry backed by sponsors Kokusai Kaihatsu UK, while Lanzante was chosen to organize and run the team, which incorporated a small number of McLaren employees, other McLaren associates and experienced endurance engineers. Drivers for the effort were

JJ Lehto Jyrki Juhani Järvilehto (; born 31 January 1966), better known as "JJ Lehto", is a Finnish racing driver. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, in 1995 and 2005. He is also a former Formula One driver. He was a protégé of Finnish 1982 Formula ...

Masanori Sekiya is a racing car driver, most famous for being the first Japanese driver to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1995. Sekiya drove in single-seaters in his early career, contesting the Japanese Formula 3000 Championship and Formula Nippon from 1987 ...

, and

Yannick Dalmas Yannick Dalmas (born 28 July 1961) is a former racing driver from France. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times (in 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1999), each with different teams. Prior to this, he participated in 49 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting ...

. Lanzante's McLaren was the fastest from the manufacturer in qualifying, and inherited the race lead after other McLarens suffered woes. The Kokusai Kaihatsu McLaren went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans by a one lap margin, making the McLaren the first car and Lanzante the first team to win on debut at Le Mans. In addition Lehto and Sekiya's involvement meant it was the first Le Mans win for a Finnish driver and a Japanese driver. Following Lanzante's Le Mans victory, their McLaren was returned and the team remained with Porsche throughout the rest of 1995. In 1996 Lanzante purchased their own McLaren GTR for use in the

British GT Championship The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports GT ...

, as well as a

Porsche 911 GT2 The Porsche 911 GT2 is a high-performance, track-focused sports car built by the German automobile manufacturer Porsche from 1993 to 2009, and then since 2010 as the GT2 RS. It is based on the 911 Turbo, and uses a similar twin-turbocharged engin ...

for BPR. The Porsche was also entered for Le Mans, but an invitation to partake in the race was not granted. Langton and Burdell remained in the Porsche, joined by

Stanley Dickens Stanley Dickens (born 7 May 1952) is a Swedish racing driver who won the Le Mans 24 hours in 1989 driving a Sauber C9- Mercedes.

and earned several podiums over the season, but Soames Langton suffered life-threatening injuries at the

Nogaro Nogaro (; Gascon: ''Nogaròu'') is a commune in the Gers department, Southwestern France. It is the site of a distillery of Armagnac brandy. Geography The commune is bordered by six other communes: Caupenne-d'Armagnac to the northwest, Sa ...

round when the Lanzante Porsche crashed. In British GT the team's McLaren was driven by

Ian Flux Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in Sc ...

and James Ulrich, and won a race at Donington Park. Although Flux and Ulrich lost the overall championship title to the drivers from

Marcos Marcos may refer to: People with the given name ''Marcos'' *Marcos (given name) Sports ;Surnamed * Dayton Marcos, Negro league baseball team from Dayton, Ohio (early twentieth-century) * Dimitris Markos, Greek footballer * Nélson Marcos, Portug ...

, they did secure the title in the GT1 category. Lanzante did not return to modern motorsport again until 2003 when the company developed a

Lotus Elise The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. The Elise has a fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chas ...

for British GT, with Dean Lanzante taking over driving duties. The Elise was later developed for the Britcar series, with Formula 1 designer

Adrian Newey Adrian Martin Newey, (born 26 December 1958) is a British Formula One engineer. He is currently the chief technical officer of the Red Bull Racing F1 team. Newey has worked in both Formula One and IndyCar racing as a race engineer, aerodynami ...

sharing driving duties. Since 2015, Lanzante has been responsible for the road conversions of the McLaren P1 GTR, previously a track-only car.

McLaren P1 LM

With the production run of McLaren P1 GTRs having been built and sold, and prompted by their efforts in converting track-only spec P1 GTRs to road-legal spec variants, Lanzante Motorsport commissioned McLaren Special Operations' Bespoke division to build a further 6 new P1 GTRs for them to develop into road-legal P1 LM variants. Of this production run, five P1 LMs have been sold and the other P1 LM, the prototype which is designated XP1 LM, has been retained and is being used for development and testing. To make them into P1 LM spec, Lanzante Motorsport developed these P1 GTRs by, amongst other modifications, making changes to the drivetrain hardware (to increase power), by employing a modified rear wing and larger front splitter and dive planes (to improve downforce) and by removing the air-jack system and using Inconel catalytic converter pipes and exhaust headers, lightweight fabricated charge coolers, Lexan windows, lighter seats (from the F1 GTR) and titanium exhausts, bolts and fixings (to save weight). At the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed, the prototype P1 LM, XP1 LM, set the fastest ever time for a road car up the Goodwood hillclimb, with a time of 47.07 seconds, driven by Kenny Bräck. On 27 April 2017, the prototype P1 LM, XP1 LM, continued its success on track, beating the road car lap record time at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, with a time of 6:43.22 using road legal Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tyres but without front number plate required to be road legal. This time was once again set by Kenny Bräck, and announced on 26 May 2017.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanzante Motorsport British auto racing teams 24 Hours of Le Mans teams Automotive companies of England