When the FIA World Endurance Championship rolls out on the Nürburgring in two weeks’ time, there will be plenty of unusual faces behind the wheels.
At the LMP1 teams there are no changes, and both Jose Maria Lopez and Sebastien Buemi have, according to the entry list send out the the FIA WEC today, prioritized the FIA WEC Championship instead of the Formula E Championship, which will be run on the same weekend in New York.
At the LMP2 teams there are plenty of changes. Vaillante Rebellion #13 with David Heinemeier Hansson and Mathias Beche will be joined by Pipo Derani instead of Nelson Piquet Jr, while Julien Canal and Bruno Senna in #31 will have Filipe Albuerquerque as teammate instead of Nico Prost.
Photo: JJ Media
G-Drive Racing #26 has Roman Rusinov and Pierre Thiriet as the two fixed drivers, while Ben Hanley replaces Alex Lynn – Lynn is replacing Jose Maria Lopez in Formula E.
CEFC Manor TRS Racing #24 has replaced Jean-Eric Vergne with Roberto Merhi, who will race alongside Tor Graves and Jonathan Hirschi.
Signatech Alpine Matmut enters both #35 og #36. There were rumours about that #35 would be parked up again after Le Mans, but they are now at least doing the German round as well. Nico Lapierre is back in the #36 after his two races with Toyota in LMP1, and the team says thanks for the help to Romain Dumas.
Tockwith Motorsports #34 has really got the taste of FIA WEC racing, and participates at this round too – however only with Nigel Moore and Philip Hanson. Karun Chandhok will be busy at Silverstone as a TV expert for Formula 1.
Photo: JJ Media
And now it’s time for GTE Pro. All teams except Aston Martin Racing #97 have said goodbye to their third drivers. And as we mentioned yesterday, Toni Vilander will replace Sam Bird at AF Corse Ferrari #71.
All 5 GTE Am cars will have the same line-up as in the first two rounds of this year’s championship, with Miguel Molina being back in the Spirit of Race #54, after being loaned to AF Corse during Le Mans.
The 6 Hours of Nürburgring will be run on July 14th-16th.
