The FIA World Endurance Championship has received 38 entries for the third round of the 2021 championship season, which will be held on 18 July.
The Hypercar category will have all entries present, with both Glickenhaus Racing cars participating, in addition to the pair of Toyota Gazoo Racing cars, and the single Alpine Elf Matmut. The team hasn’t named their driver combinations yet, so we will have to wait and see.
The LMP2 category has grown by a single car, so we reach a total of 12. Risi Competizione #82 will be trying out their new car under race conditions, for the very first time. They will run their three Le Mans drivers, Oliver Jarvis, Ryan Cullen, and Felipe Nasr. The car is owned by Cullen, who has brought this chassis to whichever team, that he has been running with.
There are no other surprises on the list. Richard Mille Racing Team #1 will run just with Tatiana Calderon and Sophia Flörsch, since Beitske Visser will be racing W-Series at Silverstone one the same weekend. ARC Bratislava #44 has opted to go for TBA as the third driver next to Miro Konopka and Oliver James Webb. Thomas Jackson has been in that seat for the opening two rounds.
GTE Pro is four cars, with two drivers each – two from Porsche and two from AF Corse.
The GTE Am category, on the other hand, has a massive boost, as this race serves as a Warm-Up for Le Mans, since that is the round following Monza. That brings the total up to 17 entries.
Kessel Racing #57 – in Car Guy colours- will once again run Takeshi Kimura and Mikkel Jensen, just like in Portimao. Those two drivers will be joined by David Fumanelli, who replaces Scott Andrews.
AF Corse Ferrari #61 will run Christoph Ulrich and Simon Mann, plus a not yet announced third driver. This is the first time for those two drivers to run at an FIA WEC event other than Le Mans.
Inception Racing Ferrari #71 will enter Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy, and Ben Barnicoat. That trio ran in the Asian Le Mans Series in February 2021 too, and won an entry for the French 24 hours race. This is the debut for the team in the FIA WEC.
Rinaldi Racing Ferrari #388 will have their FIA WEC race debut too, with Pierre Ehret being joined by Christian Hook, and Jeroen Bleekemolen. Ehret has a long Le Mans history, but most of that goes back to the mid-00s, where he paired up with Lars-Erik Nielsen for a few outings.
Iron Lynx Ferrari #85 is back to Manuela Gostner, Rahel Frey, and Katherine Legge, since the latter is back from her IMSA duties. Michelle Gatting will still get to do some racing at Monza, with her staying in her full season ELMS seat, with their 4 hours race the preceding weekend.
Team Project 1 Porsche #46 with Anders Buchardt, Dennis Olsen and Axcil Jefferies is finally back in the field, after their unlucky start to the Prologue at Spa Francorchamps, where Buchardt crashed heavily, and had to pull out of the race weekend itself.
Andrew Haryanto is back at Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche #88, which he will share with Marco Seefried, and Alessio Picariello, just like they did at Spa in May.
But before the teams travel to Monza in Italy, they all have to make a stop in Portugal in the middle of June, for the second round of the 2021 Championship.