The official entry list for the FIA World Endurance Championship opening round, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, has been announced. 37 cars will take to the track for the first race of the 2018/19 ‘Super Season’.
36 cars were announced at the FIA press conference last month, but G-Drive Racing are using the 6-hour endurance as preparation for their 24 Hours of Le Mans entry. Unlike in the past, G-Drive will not be competing in a full season of WEC. Roman Rusinov and Jean-Eric Vergne will pilot the G-Drive, with the third driver still yet to be confirmed.
The finalised entry list confirmed a whole host of names that promise for an exciting season of racing. Gabriel Aubrey has joined the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing LMP2 car, whilst Ford have announced their third drivers, to join the cars for Spa and Le Mans, as Billy Johnson and Tony Kanaan.
Matt Campbell will climb inside the Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR and BR1 have finalised their three-driver line up with Egor Orudzhev and Matevos Isaakyan joining already confirmed Stephane Sarazzin.
Although this entry list brings with it a lot of driver/team confirmations, there are still plenty of seats that need to be filled.
The GTE Pro class are taking a different approach to the opening round, as only 6 of the 10 entries will be racing with their three man Le Mans line ups.
Traditionally, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps has been the race when teams refine set up and get final practice before the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
AF Corse and Porsche GT Team are breaking with tradition, meaning that the first time their trio of drivers will share the car will be at the blue ribboned event.
The 2018/19 season also sees excitement in the GTE classes with new cars on the scene. Ferrari and Aston Martin bring new evolutions of their 2017 cars in the new EVO-spec 488 GTE and Aston Martin Vantage GTE. Aside this, BMW make their WEC debut with the M8 GTE.
The list of teams, manufacturers and drivers that are entering into the 2018/19 ‘Super Season’ World Endurance Championship definitely suggest that this will be 14 months of racing that you would not want to miss. Action gets underway next weekend as the WEC grid heads to Paul Ricard for the Prologue next week.
