Chery to participate in the 24-hour Le Mans race

The Chinese state-owned car manufacturer Chery announced plans to participate in the 24-hour Le Mans race under the Exeed brand for five years. The company will compete with factory teams from Porsche, Toyota, Aston Martin, Cadillac, BMW, and other car manufacturers.

What is known

On December 15, Exeed signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (A.C.O.) — the organizer of the Le Mans race. Chery launched a five-year "Road to Le Mans" program to participate in the prestigious racing series.

The plan includes three stages. First, Chery will launch the Exeed Unified Race campaign to work on technologies, form a team, and identify talented drivers.

Then Exeed will join the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS), which includes three classes: LMP2, LMP3, and LMGT3. To participate in the latter class, the car manufacturer must produce over 2500 road cars a year.

In the third stage, the Exeed Le Mans Team will be formed to compete in the 24-hour Le Mans race. Additionally, Chery and A.C.O. have agreed to build a Le Mans-standard certified track in the city of Wuhan, where Chery's headquarters is located. Major racing events in China will be held there, and the track will serve as a testing ground for Exeed production cars.

Chery will become the first Chinese company to participate in the 24-hour Le Mans race. Notably, the manufacturer's engine lineup is small. The most powerful in-house developed ICE is a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine with an output of 192 kW (257 hp). However, the company is developing C-DM plug-in hybrid technology with a total output of up to 455 kW (610 hp).

Chery is not the only Chinese company actively developing motorsports. The Lynk & Co Cyan Racing team of the Geely brand became the most successful in the FIA TCR World Tour series. Since 2019, Cyan Racing has won nine world champion titles in the TCR era with the Lynk & Co 03 TCR racing car. Next year, the team will switch to the new Geely Preface TCR model.

Additionally, Geely's subsidiary, Horse Powertrain (a joint venture of Geely, Renault, and Aramco), has become a service partner for the junior "Formula-4" racing series and supports the Formula Student China university engineering competition.

Source: Carnewschina