The Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team has announced that their line-up in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will remain the same, just like it was announced about their FIA WEC line-up last week.
That will give Joey Hand and Dirk Müller in the #66, plus Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook in the #67 their third season with the team, in the IMSA series.
Sebastien Bourdais will join in the #66 for the endurance races, while Scott Dixon will be the extra driver in the #67.
That leaves Ford just to announce their two endurance drivers for the FIA WEC, but they have all the time until April before the Prologue.
The team tests this week at Daytona along with many other teams, in the mandatory BOP test ahead of the season. A slightly modified colour scheme has been spotted on the cars. They are still red, white and blue, but with a more metallic shine.
Photo: Vickie Miller
The team also states that there are no intention to run more than their usual entries at Daytona and Sebring in 2018. During the recent years, Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK took the trip to those races, to get a bit extra mileage. But the team is facing a “problem”, since half of their drivers already have IMSA seats elsewhere. So either they would have to look for new talent for those races only, or mix up the usual driver line-ups, and the team has no interest in either of those solutions.
Pipo Derani (who is expected to return as third driver at Le Mans, at least) and Olivier Pla will be driving for the Tequila Patron ESM team in the Nissan Ligier DPi cars, with Derani being a full season IMSA drivers, while Pla only will participate in the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup races (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans).
Harry Tincknell is on board the Mazda Team Joest team in their DPi car. That leaves only Stefan Mücke and Andy Priaulx, of the full season drivers, without a seat at the Daytona 24 Hours in the end of January. But there are plenty of open seats out there for the endurance rounds, so they might pop up somewhere else in the paddock.
