24h Le Mans
On May 5th, the Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will kick off the 2018-2019 Super Season of the World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) and will serve as the last rehearsal before the 86th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 16th and 17th.
The first entry list included a few unoccupied slots, particularly in LMP1, that have since been filled. Oliver Turvey will share CEFC TRSM Racing's (otherwise known as Manor) #6 Ginetta G60-LT-P1 with his two fellow countrymen Oliver Rowland and Alex Brundle. The driver line-up of the #5 car (Charlie Robertson, Léo Roussel and Dean Stoneman) had already been announced, though it did not figure on the original entry list.
Also, Olivier Webb will be joined at the wheel of ByKOLLES Racing's #4 CLM P1/01 by Austrian French speaker Dominik Kraihamer and French driver Tom Dillmann, both of whom took part in the Prologue, the official tests, at Le Castellet earlier this month.
For SMP Racing's #11 BR Engineering BR1, the team will put its confidence in a duo (a unique case in the LMP1 class) composed of Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov, both from single-seaters, the IndyCar Series for the first and F1 (former Renault driver) for the second.
In the LMP2 class, after the announcement of the arrival of Stéphane Richelmi for Jackie Chan DC Racing's #38 ORECA 07, only one spot had remained available. Now G-Drive Racing has confirmed Andrea Pizzitola for the #26 ORECA 07. The French driver will join Roman Rusinov and Jean-Eric Vergne.
As indicated at Le Castellet by Jens Marquardt, the head of BMW Motorsport, Augusto Farfus will focus on DTM (German touring car championship), the opening round of which will take place at Hockenheim the same weekend as the Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, and will be replaced at the wheel of the #82 M8 GTE by Tom Blomqvist. The Bavarian marque, making its big official return to Le Mans this year, switched trios for duos as Philipp Eng, also busy in DTM, and Alexander Sims will not participate in the round.
Lastly, in LMGTE Am, the German team has already confirmed the participation of Julien Andlauer with Christian Ried and Matt Campbell at the wheel of Dempsey-Proton Racing's #77 Porsche 911 RSR.
The start at the Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will be given on Saturday, May 5th at 1:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. in the U.K.), and the French flag will be lowered on Saturday, June 16th at 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. in the U.K.) at the 86th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (tickets).
