Tower and Racing Team Turkey announce drivers

Tower Motorsports and Racing Team Turkey have announced their drivers for the 2023 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Tower Motorsports #13 won their entry thanks to the Jim Trueman title in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which John Farano secured as the best Bronze-rated driver in the LMP2 category in 2022.

He is once again active in USA this year, but it will be with two other co-drivers for the French race. Ricky Taylor and Rene Rast have been signed for the historic endurance race.

Taylor races for Konica Minolta Wayne Taylor Racing Acura #10 in the IMSA Championship in the GTP category, so he is not a direct competitor to Farano. Despite Taylor not being a regular in ACO racing, with the exception of a few outings here and there, he has become somewhat of a veteran at Le Mans. This will be his ninth race, which mostly has happened in LMP2 cars, except for the two GTE participations.

Tower Motorsports #13
Graphics: TDS Racing

Rene Rast has competed in the French classic four times so far, with three of them being in LMP2, and the last one for Audi Sport Team Joest in the LMP1 category. The German has left Audi as a works driver, and has now become a BMW works driver. They will enter the FIA WEC next year, so he will take the chance of staying in the look of sportscar racing, in addition to his Formula E participation. And by the way – it’s kindda the same for Taylor, with Acura/Honda expected to participate at Le Mans in 2024 in the Hypercar category.

Tower Motorsports will get some operational help from TDS Racing, who brings the Vaillante theme on track once again, just like they had in the 2022 season. Fun fact – Tower Motorsports and TDS Racing actually compete against each other in the USA, but has chosen to work together for the 24 hours race.

Racing Team Turkey #923 has got their three drivers signed up as well. That will be a somewhat different look to their usual ELMS line-up. Salih Yoluc is usually paired up with Charlie Eastwood and Louis Deletraz. Those two already have FIA WEC commitments for Le Mans with ORT by TF #25 in the GTE Am, and Team WRT #41 in LMP2 respectively.

So Yoluc will have to team up with two other fast drivers. Tom Gamble will make his LMP2 comeback, after racing for United Autosports in 2022. The young Brit hasn’t secured a full season deal for 2023 in ACO racing, but has previously shown very good speed onboard GTE cars. So this is a golden opportunity for him to prove his speed in the ultra competitive LMP2 Pro/Am category at Le Mans this year.

Racing Team Turkey #923
Graphics: Racing Team Turkey

The final seat goes to Dries Vanthoor. The Belgium racer has competed at Le Mans three times, and already won it at his debut for JMW Motorsport Ferrari back in 2017. He was a substitute for Team WRT in the FIA WEC at Fuji 2022, and won that race too. He is a BMW factory driver too, just like Rast, so they will hopefully stay warm for the new LMDh car coming to the FIA WEC 2024.

TF Sport will, just like in the European Le Mans Series, run the Racing Team Turkey #923 at Le Mans.

The centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will run on 10-11 June 2023.

The updated entry list with all the confirmed drivers can be found here.

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