Ben Hanley has been called up as a substitute at United Autosports. The Brit will help the team in the FIA World Endurance Championship rounds in Portimao and Monza, since there are date clashes with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for those two weekends. He will share ORECA 07 Gibson #22 with Phil Hanson, and a not-yet-announced third driver, who will be of Silver ranking. Hanley replaces Filipe Albuquerque, who will do those two weekends for Cadillac Racing in the IMSA series. There is a clash as well at the…
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FIA WEC add race in Qatar
FIA World Endurance Championship will add another race to the 2024 race schedule. The series will go to Qatar for the very first time, having done a 6 year deal with Losail International Circuit. The track is known for MotoGP, which it has hosted for many years. Formula 1 had a single start at the track in 2021, and will return to the desert track in 2023, with the track currently undergoing an upgrade. The race will be the new opening round of the FIA WEC, and will host the…
Read MoreDutch substitute at UA
There will be a Dutch substitute in place at United Autosports for at least 2 of the 7 rounds in the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship. Giedo van der Garde will be the newest driver to wear the blue and red racing suits, when he jumps into car #23 in the FIWEC. Tom Blomqvist is the regular driver onboard the car, alongside Josh Pierson and Oliver Jarvis, but the Portimao and Monza rounds clash with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races at Long Beach and Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. There…
Read MoreGrosjean new Lambo driver
Romain Grosjean will return to the sportscar world this coming season, with the Swiss-French driver signing a contract with Lamborghini. The first task will be for Iron Lynx during the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January 2023, where he will be sharing a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 with Andrea Caldarelli and Mirko Bortolotti. There will be more races later in the year, but that will be announced in due course. Grosjean will continue to race in the NTT IndyCar Series with his programme at Andretti Autosport throughout 2023, so this…
Read MoreToyota Gazoo Racing unchanged in 2023
Toyota Gazoo Racing will enter the 2023 season with stability around the team The defending World Champions in the FIA World Endurance Championship will stick to the exact same six drivers for the upcoming season. Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi will share car #7, while World Champions Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley share car #8. The team did make some changes in car #8 prior to the 2022 season, when Kazuki Nakajima announced his retirement, and was replaced by Hirakawa. The young Japanese driver was…
Read MoreProton Competition to run LMDh
Proton Competition has confirmed that they will take a step up the sportscar ladder. The German outfit has bought a total of four brand new Porsche 963 LMDh cars, with the plan of running a single entry in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and a single car in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2023. The team is not ready to announce any drivers yet, nor if they are going to do the full season, or if they start at a later stage. There is a doubt if Porsche will…
Read MoreMako and Tandy part of 963 programme
Porsche Penske Motorsport has announced the final two drivers, who are part part of the racing programmes in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship og FIA World Endurance Championship for 2023. That will be two very familiar Porsche faces – Frederic Makowiecki and Nick Tandy. Mako has been part of the development of the new Porsche 963 LMDh car since the beginning – actually he drove the very first meters in the car before Christmas 2021. He has since been part of their testprogramme which has surpassed 20.000 kilometers of testing during…
Read MoreYe first driver for Hertz Team JOTA
Yifei Ye is the first confirmed driver at Hertz Team JOTA, for their upcoming 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign. The Chinese driver has impressed a lot of people in sportscar racing, with the results that he has achieved so far. He won both the Asian Le Mans Series and European Le Mans Series in 2021, and continued to race on in the ELMS in 2022 for COOL Racing, where he grabbed three podium finishes, and fifth in the final standings. JOTA is definitely not a new name in the…
Read More8 hours of the season finale in Bahrain
The season finale in the FIA World Endurance Championship 2022 was run at Bahrain International Circuit, whose contract to hold the final race recently got renewed until 2025. Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain was the closure of overall fifty-eight hours of racing, at six different tracks. Toyota Gazoo Racing #8 with Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa started the race from Pole Position, ahead of Peugeot TotalEnergies #93 with Paul Di Resta, Jean-Eric Vergne and Mikkel Jensen in second place, Toyota Gazoo Racing #7 with Mike Conway, Jose Maria…
Read MoreIron Lynx official partner with Lamborghini
Iron Lynx and Lamborghini have announced a brand new collaboration for the upcoming seasons 2023 will be a GT3 collaboration, with 2024 being the big year of the LMDh car. Iron Lynx has run with Ferrari so far, no matter what category they have entered. They started out working with Kessel Racing, until they started their own operation. They started working together with Prema Racing for the 2022 season, and they ran the LMP2 part of the team, while Iron Lynx ran the GTE, GT3 and Ferrari Challenge cars. They…
Read MoreFerrari LMH presented
Ferrari has shown their brand new LMH car to the public, during the Ferrari Mondiali 2022 at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola. The car will be named Ferrari 499P, and will be able to compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. 2023 will however be FIA WEC only, where a lot of the racing happening close to the home base in Maranello, in case some spare parts are needed. There won’t be any private cars from the start of the 2023…
Read MoreChanges at Peugeot TotalEnergies
The 2022 season finale in the FIA WEC, which will run at the 8 Hours of Bahrain, will see a change in the line-up at Peugeot TotalEnergies. The French outfit has said goodbye to James Rossiter immediately, since the Brit moved to a new job as team principal at Maserati in Formula E. So he only got two race weekends onboard the new Peugeot 9×8 Hypercar The team has called up Nico Müller instead. Müller signed a contract with the French car manufacturer, after being an Audi Sport driver for…
Read MoreUA has car #23 signed – maybe
United Autosports has announced the three drivers for their car #23, which they are planning to run in the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship. Josh Pierson was announced way back in Le Mans week. Now Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist have been announced alongside the 16-year-old American. But there might be a small stumbling block. The FIA is currently scrutineering all the driver rankings of all sportscar drivers in the whole world, and while a lot of drivers already got their 2023 ranking, they are still undecided about Pierson. Pierson…
Read MoreLequien – Enviromental challenges
Racing24-7.net had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the head of LMEM, Frederic Lequien, who is running the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series. We chose to split the interview into several pieces, which contain different subjects. Everybody is looking into the environmental challenges for the future. What is the plan for LMEM regarding the future? “The decision we took about the renewable fuel in the FIA WEC and ELMS – this is something really concrete that we do. But…
Read MoreLequien – future tv broadcast plans
Racing24-7.net had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the head of LMEM, Frederic Lequien, who is running the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series. We chose to split the interview into several pieces, which contains different subjects. FIA WEC TV is currently behind a pay-wall. Where is the current consideration, bearing in mind that the number of manufacturers who are coming – they are going to be keen on as big an audience as possible. Is there a discussion about…
Read MoreLequien – the future of GT3 in ACO racing
Racing24-7.net had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the head of LMEM, Frederic Lequien, who is running the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series. We chose to split the interview into several pieces, which contain different subjects. GT3 racing has been part of the ACO ladder for many years. The ELMS contained GT3 for several seasons. GT3 then moved into the GT3 Le Mans Cup for 2016, and when the LMP3 cars joined in 2017, it has been the Michelin…
Read MoreLequien: “We can go everywhere”
Racing24-7.net had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the head of LMEM, Frederic Lequien, who is running the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series. We chose to split the interview into several parts, which contain different subjects. The first part is about the race schedules. The 2023 schedules haven’t been well received by all teams, fans and especially drivers, since there is a total of four date clashes with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, cross the FIA WEC and ELMS. Is…
Read MoreCadillac presents WEC drivers plus extra Daytona car
Cadillac Racing has presented their three drivers for the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship season. The American team will enter the Hypercar category, with one of their brand new Cadillac V-LMDh cars, which will be run by Chip Ganassi Racing. It’s three very well-known faces behind the wheel of the new car – not only at CGR, but also in the FIA WEC. Earl Bamber and Alexander Lynn will continue their collaboration, which started in the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with one of the team’s DPi cars. Richard Westbrook…
Read MoreFIA WEC expands for 2023
The FIA World Endurance Championship expands to 7 races for the 2023 season. Six of the well-known events are joined by a seventh, which was one of the COVID-19 replacements in the 2021 season. The season will start at Sebring on March 11-12 with two days of Prologue testing, prior to the 8 hours/1000 Miles season opener on the following Friday 17 – the day prior to the IMSA 12 hours race. The series returns to the Portuguese track of Portimao, for 6 hours in the hills on April 16.…
Read MoreFour drivers chosen for Rookie test
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…
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