24h Le Mans
In two weeks will take place the 6 Hours of Shanghai, the next-to-last round of the 2016 World Endurance Championship (WEC) season, and some new names figure on the entry list.
With 32 competitors, the number of cars on the starting grid will be the same as the Chinese round, as will the driver line-ups in the LM P1 and LM GTE Pro class. As is often the case, most changes concern LM P2. In LM GTE Am, only the trio driving Larbre Compétition's #50 Corvette has been modified due to the return to the World Endurance Championship (WEC) of French driver Romain Brandela to replace Japanese driver Yutaka Yamagishi.
Returning to the championship as well is Mathias Beche, Rebellion Racing driver who was "lent" to Thiriet by TDS Racing for the European Le Mans Series. The Swiss team will enter only one car for the remainder of the season, so the Swiss driver found a home in the second Oreca 05 entered by Manor (#45). With him will be head driver Tor Graves and another returning driver, Roberto Gonzalez, the brother of Ricardo (RGR Sport by Morand), who participated in the Mexican round this year. The arrival of these two men reshuffled the driver line-up of the sister car, Alex Lynn going from the #45 to the #44 to replace Roberto Mehri, and Will Stevens will stay with G-Drive Racing in the place of René Rast, already absent in Japan because of DTM.
It's actually from DTM that hails a newcomer to endurance, Tom Blomqvist. The son of Stig Blomqvist, World Rally Champion in 1984, will debut in endurance with Extreme Speed Motorsport and Antonio Giovinazzi, selected for the Rookie Test in Bahrain, and Sean Gelael, who both debuted in Japan.
The start of the 6 Hours of Shanghai will be given on Sunday, November 6th at 11:00 a.m. local time (3:00 a.m. in the U.K.).
Photo (Copyright: John Rourke-Adrenalmedia.com/FIA WEC): Festivities before the start of the 2015 6 Hours of Shanghai.
