The FIA World Endurance Championship has 32 cars entered for the 2021 season opener in Portimao.
Unfortunately, there won’t be any Glickenhaus at the opening round, since they have opted to sit out. They have been at Vallelunga yesterday and today, for the very first roll-out. The days have primarily been for system checks, and then speed and endurance will be their next tasks.
While we lose two SCG007 cars, there will be a single Corvette Racing C8.R going to Europe. Antonio Garcia and Oliver Gavin have the honour of driving the race. The race is meant for data collection ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, that Corvette is expected to enter once again in 2021. They had to skip the 2020 edition due to the COVID-19 situation. Gavin had retired at Corvette Racing, being limited to an ambassador role for the brand. But instead of getting Americans Jordan Taylor or Tommy Milner, they have opted to use Gavin and Spanish Garcia, who has much shorter travel to do. We saw the same thing at COTA in 2020, where Jan Magnussen got a bonus race for the team, even though he actually wasn’t meant to race anymore for them.
Team WRT has named their final two drivers for the LMP2 car. Robin Frijns will be joined by Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi. Habsburg has already claimed the first championship title of the year, by winning in the Asian Le Mans Series with G-Drive Racing, while Milesi raced the 24 Hours of Daytona, where the Racing Team Nederland car, unfortunately, retired very early. Habsburg already knows WRT, since he raced in DTM for them during the 2020 season.
Photo: Joao Filipe / AdrenalMedia.com
Team Project 1 Porsche #46 has swapped Jörg Bergmeister for Dennis Olsen, but without naming his two teammates. Cetilar Racing Ferrari #47, and Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche #88, Aston Martin Racing #98 plus ARC Bratislava #44 just has a single driver written on the entry list so far – Roberto Lacorte, Julien Andlauer, Paul Dalla Lana, and Miro Konopka.
Team Project 1 Porsche #56 still needs to mention the teammate of Egidio Perfetti and Matteo Cairoli’s teammate. GR Racing Porsche #86 hasn’t mentioned their third driver next to Mike Wainwright and Ben Barker either, and D’Station Racing Aston Martin #777 has an unmanned seat alongside Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii.
The 8 hours FIA World Endurance Championship race in Portimao, Portugal will run on 4 April.
