G-Drive Racing will run a brand new driver line-up, when the first round of the 2018 European Le Mans Series will be run.
Roman Rusinov is the fixed driver in the team, but instead of what was announced back in February, when the entry list was revealed. he will be joined by Alexandre Imperatori and Andrea Pizzitola as co-drivers – at least for the opening round.
Imperatori has experience from things like LMP1 at Rebellion Racing, which he raced for until a few years back.
Andrea Pizzitola was part of the Algarve Pro Racing line-up for the last couple of seasons in the ELMS but the Silver driver now gets the chance at G-Drive Racing.
When the original line up was announced back in February, it was to a big surprise for the people in and around the series. The combination of Roman Rusinov, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Jean-Eric Vergne would be a Gold/Gold/Platinum line-up, which isn’t allowed in LMP2. It became clear soon thereafter, that Vaxiviere would be taken out of the line-up again, while the hunt for a Silver driver started.
Photo: JJ Media
Jean-Eric Vergne isn’t going to be a part of the driver line-up at Paul Ricard, since he has a date clash with the Formula E race in Rome. That will be run on the Saturday of the Paul Ricard ELMS round, so it hasn’t been possible to combine the two. The news from the team is that he will be in the car from Spa Francorchamps (FIA WEC guest appearance) onwards.
The team hasn’t named the third driver at Spa and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but if Pizzitola does a good job at the opening round, there might be a chance for him to be there for the rest of the season.
The G-Drive Racing outfit has historically had a lot of changes. Since the team was founded in 2012, there has been 18 driver sharing the car with Roman Rusinov. Add to that, other cars that have run the orange painting, where Rusinov wasn’t in the car himself – and you will have a further 12 drivers.
The first round of the European Le Mans Series will be run on 15 April at Paul Ricard.
