Category: WEC

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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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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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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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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There are a few changes to the entry list for the 6 hours FIA World Endurance Championship round at Autodromo Nazionale di Monza this weekend. 36 cars are entered, with some dropping out and others coming in. Northwest AMR #98, who has run with Heart of Racing Team colors since Spa Francorchamps, are not running this weekend, since they have a clash with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, so they have chosen that over the FIA WEC race. Proton Competition has switched cars and categories. They have been running a…

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TF Sport has chosen to switch brands once the 2023 season is over. The British team has pretty much been synonymous with Aston Martin, ever since they first appeared in British GT in 2014, and with their entry in the Michelin Le Mans Cup in 2016, where they won the title, and moved on to the European Le Mans Series, where they finished second, and then further on, into the FIA World Endurance Championship. The team will move to the brand new Corvette Z06 GT3.R in 2024, running two cars…

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Proton Competition and Ford Performance have announced a new collaboration, as they are presenting the brand new Ford Mustang GT3. So they are throwing in their cap, to participate in the brand new GT3 category in the FIA World Endurance Championship, which is replacing the GTE category. Ford has been in and out of the sportscar world. They have had a NASCAR programme for many years, as their primary motorsport activity. But they have also had an engine programme in IMSA, in the DP category, and more recently with the…

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Alpine has shown their brand new A424_β LMDh car, ahead of the very first rollout coming up next month. The car is developed in collaboration with ORECA, and do have some similarities with the Acura ARX-06 in regards to the front of the car. It will once again be Signatech running the programme, just like they have done in the FIA WEC since 2012, where it’s primarily has been LMP2 running. They got the chance to buy the Rebellion R13 towards the end of 2020, and then raced two seasons in…

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Neel Jani will be racing the rest of the FIA World Endurance Championship season for Proton Competition. The Swiss racer will be third driver on the new Porsche 963 LMDh car, with Harry Tincknell and Gianmaria Bruni being his teammates. The team was one of the very early takers, when Porsche announced that the model would be available for privateers. So they put in an order for two cars in the FIA WEC, and two for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. There has been a bit of backlog to get…

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The FIA World Endurance Championship has announced their 2024 schedule. The series will expand from 7 to 8 race weekends, going towards the left of pre-COVID-19, which put a damper on many things. A further expansion is expected for 2025. As previous announced, the season is going to start in Qatar with the Prologue and opening round in February. That will be a race of maximum 10 hours, or 1812 kilometers. But more big changes are happening after that. The second round will be a new 6-hour race at Imola…

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The ByKolles team, who is racing under the Floyd Vanwall Racing Team banner in 2023, has made some changes to their driver line-up for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Jacques Villeneuve is no longer part of the team, after a very problematic start to the season. The Canadian Formula 1 World Champion will be replaced by Tristan Vautier, who has plenty of Prototype experience, but none with the Vanwall Vandervell 680 Hypercar so far. He will be sharing the car with Tom Dillmann and Esteban Guerrieri, who already competed…

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Malthe Jakobsen has been named the official junior driver for Peugeot TotalEnergies. The Dane already had the first contact with the team during fall of 2022, and did the Rookietest in Bahrain for the team, where he did such an impressive job, despite it being the very first time that he was onboard such advanced material as a Hypercar. The parties have kept in touch ever since, and that has turned into an official contract with the team. Jakobsen did several seasons of Formula 4 in both his native Denmark…

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The competitors for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans will be allowed to heat their tires after all. The FIA and ACO had originally disallowed tire ovens for the 2023 season, to save the energy that was used for all the heating, that the teams used to bring to the tracks. Since the very moment that it was announced, there were a lot of teams fearing dangerous situations, when drivers were going to exit the pit on stone-cold tires. The tires had to be stored in shade, so not…

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