The TDS Racing team had a bit of an issue ahead of the 6 Hours of Fuji FIA World Endurance Championship race, which will be run on 14 October.
One in of the drivers in their usual 3-driver line-up, Loic Duval, can’t go to Japan, since he needs to race with his full season works team Audi Sport in the DTM on that date.
In theory, it would be possible to do with two drivers only, but since Francois Perrodo is Bronze driver only, it would be too tough a task for him to do.
So the TDS team has found a reserve for Duval – and that will be one from within the team.
The team runs the G-Drive Racing outfit in the European Le Mans Series too, and Platinum driver Jean-Eric Vergne was available that weekend.
Vergne is a very worthy replacement for Duval, and has driven and won quite a few endurance races already. He was part of the G-Drive Racing #26 crossing the finishing line first at Le Mans 2018, but the team was then disqualified for modifying their refuelling equipment. They have appealed that decision, which will be finally decided this coming week by the FIA.
Other than TDS Racing, it’s also clear that BMW Team MTEK will have to modify their driver line-up a bit, because both Philipp Eng and Augusto Farfus will be driving DTM as well. But they have already reduced their line-up to a two-driver only, since both are Gold- or Platinum ranked drivers.