The FIA World Endurance Championship has chosen the four drivers for this year’s Rookie test, which will run on the Sunday after the season finale in Bahrain.
This has been a tradition for the past few years, where four young talents will have the chance to do at least 30 laps in the championship winning cars.
Lilou Wadoux will have the chance to test the 2022 Championship winning Hypercar. Alpine Elf Team #36 and Toyota Gazoo Racing #8 are equal on points, with the 36 having lead for most of the season. Wadoux is currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship for Richard Mille Racing Team #1, which is run by Signatech. Signatech is also the team running the Alpine outfit.
Lorenzo Colombo will be testing the winning GTE Pro car, which still has to be decided between Porsche and AF Corse. AF Corse is currently leading the standings. The choice of Colombo is a bit strange, since it speed-wise is a step down the ladder from LMP2 to GTE Pro – and his future is most likely to be in LMP2 or Hypercar, anyway.
Photo: JJ Media
Doriane Pin will have a huge day ahead. The 18-year-old driver will test the championship winning LMP2 car. She is still quite new in sportscar racing, but has been active in and around the Iron Lynx/Iron Dames, being a part of their Michelin Le Mans Cup team last year, before receiving an unexpected call earlier this year, resulting in her FIA WEC debut at Spa Francorchamps in the GTE Am category, when Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting had to miss that round due to COVID-19. She was part of the winning crew in July at 24 hours of Spa alongside Bovy, Gatting and Rahey Frey. She also competes in Ferrari Challenge Europe, trying to win the title like Gatting did in 2021. JOTA #38 has quite a big lead in the LMP2 standings, but can still be caught by United Autosports USA #23, Realteam by WRT #41, WRT #31 and Prema Orlen Team #9.
Last but not least, we have Finn Gehrsitz being awarded a GTE Am test. We already know that it will be onboard an Aston Martin, but the question is if it’s TF Sport #33 or Northest AMR #98. Those two cars are the only with mathematical chances to win the championship. 17-year-old Gehrsitz already has GT knowledge, since he competed in the Asian Le Mans Series in February 2022 for Herberth Motorsport in their GT3 Porsche. The young German made his Michelin Le Mans Cup debut in 2021, and went on to race for United Autosports #2 in the European Le Mans Series LMP3 category this year.
The test will be run on 13 November at Bahrain International Circuit near Sakhir.
