Stephane Sarrazin will be racing for SMP Racing in the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship 2018/19 season.
The 42 year-old racing driver has participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 16 times so far, and therefore will be one of the most experienced drivers on the starting grid, when his 17th and 18th Le Mans races will be run this year and next year.
Sarrazin started at the Chrysler works team in 2001, before he raced one year for ORECA – who by the way, was running the Chrysler programme. After a single year at Pescarolo Sport, he raced two seasons at Aston Martin Racing. Those years were the only, where he didn’t run in the top class. Then he went on to have five starts at Peugeot, before they closed down their team, and he switched to Toyota. He had his final race for that outfit at the COTA track in the USA, where he was part of bringing the car home in third in the 2017 edition of the race, where he replaced Anthony Davidson.
Stephane Sarrazin is the third announced of six drivers in the SMP Racing LMP1 programme. Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov are the two other announced drivers. The team will enter two brand new BR1 cars, which has been developed together with Dallara. The team will also run an LMP2 car in the European Le Mans Series plus at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The FIA WEC season starts at the Prologue on 6-7 April at Paul Ricard, before the first real race is run at Spa Francorchamps on 5 May.