Two sportscar teams closing their doors

The sportscar world has lost two teams within just a few days. The German outfit Project 1, and Danish team GMB Motorsport has had to stop their activities. Project 1, who previously was known as Tolomit, has chosen to close their doors, since they no longer can find the budget to run their programmes. They have been synonymous with Porsche for many years, and has participated in several Carrera Cup championships, including winning the German championship with Rene Rast, Philipp Eng and Christian Menzel. Eng would go on to win…

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Alpine presents car and drivers

Alpine Endurance Team has shown the colors and drivers, prior to the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship start later this month. The brand new Alpine A424 is built to the LMDh regulations, and will compete in the Hypercar category in the FIA WEC. If the team would wish to do so, they could also enter IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where the technical base fits into the GTP category. But before doing so, it would have to go through a technical process and tests, just like everybody else wishing to compete…

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BMW M Team WRT names LMDh drivers

BMW M Team WRT has named all six drivers for their LMDh programme in the FIA World Endurance Championship 2024. When the entry list was announced late November, we already saw Dries Vanthoor in car #15, and Sheldon van der Linde in car #20. Raffaele Marciello has left Mercedes after a lot of seasons, and has become a BMW works driver. “Lello” has won pretty much everything worth winning in GT3, but now he will make the jump into Prototype racing in the Hypercar category. He will be sharing car…

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Proton presents Mustang drivers and colors

Proton Competition has announced their six drivers and the colors for their two brand new Ford Mustang GT3 cars in the FIA World Endurance Championship 2024. Five of the six drivers are well-known drivers at the German team, but all have Porsche experience from the past. Car #77 will be driven by Ryan Hardwick, Zacherie Robichon, and Ben Barker. Hardwick and Robichon won the ELMS GTE title in 2023 with Proton in a Porsche, and had IMSA success prior to that. Hardwick has been one of the best Bronze-rated drivers…

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Ferrari unchanged in 2024

Ferrari AF Corse has confirmed their Hypercar team in the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship will remain unchanged. Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco, and Nicklas Nielsen will once again race in car #50, while James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Antonio Giovinazzi remain onboard car #51. The team made their debut with the 499P model at Sebring in 2023, grabbing a shock Pole Position in their very first attempt. The race didn’t run quite as smooth, but they did finish on the Sebring podium, followed up at the second round in…

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TGR with new colors in 2024

Toyota Gazoo Racing will change the livery of their racing cars in 2024. After running primarily white and red colors on the cars in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and the FIA World Rally Championship for many seasons, the coor will switch to primarily black, with a very clear GR logo. The two GR010 Hybrid cars will bi piloted by Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and team boss Kamui Kobayashi in car #7, while the defending World Champions Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa will continue in car #8.…

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Andrade and van Rompuy racing for TF

TF Sport has filled their seats in the first of their two Corvette Z06 GT3.R in the FIA World Endurance Championship 2024. The British team has previously announced Charlie Eastwood as the new Corvette factory driver, and lead driver of car #81. Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy was announced today as his two teammates. Andrade arrives as newly crowned LMP2 champion in the FIA WEC, which he won with Team WRT. The Angolian driver has been doing very well for the last couple of years in both the FIA…

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Sørensen continues at Aston Martin

Marco Sørensen has gotten a new works deal with Aston Martin Racing. The 33 year old Dane has signed a new multi-year deal with the British sportscar brand, for which he has raced for since 2015. It’s been some quite successful years for Sørensen. He won the GTE Pro title alongside Nicki Thiim in 2016 – something he did again in the 2019/20 season. They continued to race together for just one season more, before the GTE Pro programme was shut down, following the car company being bought by Lawrence…

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Nato, Ilott, and Hanson to JOTA

Hertz Team JOTA has announced another three drivers for their 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship programme. When the FIA WEC entry list was revealed two weeks ago, we already had Will Stevens confirmed in the Porsche 963 #12. He will be joined by Callum Ilott and Norman Nato. Ilott is a former Ferrari Junior driver, but left that programme, when there was no obvious chance of a Formula 1 seat for him. He did get a taste of sportscar racing prior to leaving the Italian brand, including competing at the…

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Alpine with two new names

Alpine has announced their six drivers for the upcoming Hypercar programme in the FIA World Endurance Championship 2024. There is no surprise about three of the names, since those drivers has been attached to Alpine on/off during the resent past. Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Charles Milesi has been part of the French team for some time, and has been part of the development of the new Alpine A424, which is build by ORECA, and based on the LMDh regulations. The three new names to the team is Ferdinand Habsburg, Paul-Loup…

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Drive-through penalty awaits Floyd Vanwall

Floyd Vanwall Racing Team #4 already has received the first penalty for the FIA World Endurance Championship race in Bahrain. Esteban Guerrieri was heading back towards the pit, towards the end of the FP3, but with just over 5 minutes remaining, the Argentinian decided to loosen his seat belts already in Turn 11 – i.e. way way before he had entered the pitlane. The whole episode was caught on the onboard camera from the car, and was even broadcast live on the YouTube feet. And such a thing, will be…

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New FIA WEC qualification format approved

The Qualifying session for the FIA World Endurance Championship will be changed for the 2024 season. The changes comes into force, in an already big change of the race format, with LMP2 and GTE Am dropping out, and being replaced by the new LMGT3 category. Those are the well known GT3 cars from other championships, but with iluminated numbers, and the three colors dots on each side of the car, indicating top 3. But that in itself has nothing with the qualifying to do. The change is that Hypercar will…

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UA prepares for McLaren programme in FIA WEC

United Autosports has announced a partnership with McLaren Automotive, regarding a programme in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the GT3 category for the 2024 season. McLaren will however first have to be accepted as a constructor in the FIA WEC, with very limited spaces available. UA has been active in ACO racing since 2016, when they entered the European Le Mans Series, first running a pair of LMP3 cars, and then later on LMP2 cars as well. They expanded to a FIA WEC programme in 2019, winning the title…

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Three rookies confirmed for Bahrain test

The FIA World Endurance Championship has announced the three drivers, who are going to participated in the 2023 edition of the Rookie test, following the season finale in Bahrain. Josh Pierson has been chosen to test in the Hypercar category, where it’s already known to be the championship winning Toyota Gazoo Racing – we just don’t know if it’s number 7 or 8 yet. Pierson is doing his second season in the FIA WEC for United Autosports in LMP2, where he won at Portimao earlier this year, and currently sits…

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Vandoorne confirmed at Peugeot

Stoffel Vandoorne has been confirmed as new driver at Peugeot ToralEnergies. The team haven’t officially confirmed it yet, but it is expected to be Gustavo Menezes, that he is replacing. The Belgian driver got signed by the team as a test driver in November 2022, when he participated in the Rookie test in Bahrain, following the season finale. He got his race debut at Fuji in Japan 14 days ago, where he repacted Nico Müller, who was sidelined due to injury. It is still not confirmed, if this is the…

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Extra Japanese drivers at Fuji

The FIA World Endurance Championship will have a few extra local drivers on the starting grid, when the 6-hour race will be run this weekend. Amongst the 36 competing cars, there are a total of 8 Japanese drivers on the entry list. It’s no surprise that Kamui Kobayashi and Ryo Hirakawa participate for Toyota Gazoo Racing in the Hypercar category, like they have done all year long. D’Station Racing Aston Martin #777 is once again competing in the GTE Am kategory with Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii alongside British racer Casper…

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Vandoorne in Peugeot debut at Fuji

Stoffel Vandoorne will have his race debut for Peugeot TotalEnergies, when the FIA World Endurance Championship races at Fuji International Speedway next week. The Belgian racer will replace Nico Müller in car #94, who has broken his collarbone, following an accident during his summer holiday. This is far from the first time that Vandoorne has participated in the FIA WEC. The former F1 driver has previously raced for SMP Racing in their LMP1 car, and done a season for JOTA in the LMP2 category. Vandoorne was announced as a test…

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Frijns new BMW works driver

Robin Frijns has signed a new contract with BMW Motorsport. The 31-year-old Dutch driver will become a part of their new LMDh test programme, ahead of their FIA World Endurance Championship 2024 entry. Frijns will join from Audi Sport, where he was works driver for many seasons. He was on the road to a sportscar seat in LMDh with them, until they shut down that programme, moving their focus to a Formula 1 programme from 2026 instead. The Dutch driver has been at Team WRT, which has been chosen to…

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Lamborghini shows new LMDh

Lamborghini has shown their new LMDh car to the public for the first time. The physical presentation happened at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Great Britain, on the 60-year anniversary of the very first car from the Italian brand. The car will be called SC63, consisting of Squadra Corse and (19)63 is the first year that their first car left the factory near Bologna. The team has already confirmed that they are going to participate in the full FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024, plus the four Michelin Endurance…

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IE: The programmes almost ready for 2024

Inter Europol Competition are really close to having the programmes for the 2024 season ready. The Polish team has been a long time member of the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series paddocks, while they have been a bit in and out of the Asian Le Mans Series, Michelin Le Mans Cup, Ligier European Series, and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. With the new rules in FIA WEC in 2024, with LMP2 no longer being a part of the series, the team has to move in other directions.…

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