Racing Team Nederland held their presentation of their FIA World Endurance Championship team today.
After their LMP2 debut season in the European Le Mans Series, the team has opted to advance to FIA WEC. The team will be the first to enter a Dallara P217 Gibson, where they will fight the ORECA and Ligier cars.
Team owner Frits van Eerd was a clear choice for one of the seats in the car, and his companion for many years, Jan Lammers was also announced some time ago.
Giedo van der Garde was announced two month ago, and is a new arrival to the team. He was part of the LMP2 Championship winning combination for JOTA Sport in the ELMS 2016, but he didn’t get to do much driving in 2017.
But it was announced that Jan Lammers wouldn’t be a part of the driving team throughout the full 2018/19 season, but would hand over the seat to another driver, when he had participated in his 24th Le Mans race in June 2018.
His replacement was announced today. It’s going to be Nyck de Vries, who will take over the seat in the sunflower yellow #29. The double Formula Renault 2.0 Champion has gone on to race in the Formula Renault 3.5, GP3 and Formula 2 Championships, and has won at least one race in every season.
De Vries will have a very busy programme, since he will once again race in Formula 2 for Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing, plus he has connections to Audi Sport, where he was part of their Formula E Rookie Test in Marrakesh back in January.
Nyck de Vries will have his race debut at Silverstone in August, at Round 4 of the FIA World Endurance Championship 2018/19
The FIA WEC season starts on 5 May at Spa Francorchamps.