British luxury car maker Bentley recently recruited Graham Humphrys, who designed the 1999 Le Mans 24 Hour-winning BMW. It’s seen as a major step for Bentley making a possible return to the world’s greatest endurance race, the Le Mans 24 hours.
Bentley, now owned by Volkswagen, have recruited Graham Humphrys who designed the BMW V12 LMR at Williams Motorsport which was victorious 13 years ago at Circuit de la Sarthe in France, venue for the world’s greatest endurance race, the Le Mans 24 Hours or the 24 Heures du Mans as it is known in France reports Autoweek.
The new Bentley project team also includes John Wickham who was Bentley’s team director a decade ago.
Brian Gush, who is director for chassis and powertrain development at Bentley, but whose responsibilities also include motorsport, is reported as saying, “Graham is helping us out with the feasibility work; he has a lot of experience in both GT and prototypes.”
Gush was non-committal when it came to a firm decision on a return to Le Mans stressing that Bentley were looking at a number of motorsport options such as GT classes but he had last year expressed a desire to return to the prototype ranks of endurance motorsport. He did, however, have reservations, suggesting that the complexity of the 2014 rule book for Le Mans entries might mitigate against an imminent Bentley return to the Le Mans 24 hour race.