Peugeot has confirmed that it will field just two drivers in both its Hypercar class entries at the Spa 6 Hours WEC race on May 11, with Nico Muller and Jean-Eric Vergne sharing the #93 car and Loic Duval and Gustavo Menezes in the #94.
The French manufacturer has opted not to give junior driver Malthe Jakobsen his first race outing in the 9X8, despite being the only other driver considered for the Spa round. Jean-Marc Finot, motorsport boss of Peugeot and all the Stellantis group brands, said at the Qatar WEC season-opener in March that he would “not be looking outside of the Peugeot family” to fill the vacant seats.
The confirmation of Peugeot’s two-driver plan came with the release of the entry list for the Spa 6 Hours on 11 May on Wednesday. Jota Porsche driver Will Stevens and Lamborghini’s Mirko Bortolotti will also miss Spa as planned to fulfil their FE commitments with Andretti and Mahindra respectively. Nato will not be replaced alongside Will Stevens and Norman Nato in the #12 Porsche 963 LMDh as already confirmed.
Mirko Bortolotti will swap over from the Iron Lynx IMSA SportsCar Championship programme in three of the endurance rounds to join Jack Aitken and Nicklas Nielsen in the solo WEC SC63 LMDh. Richard Mille Racing has nominated Ferdinand Habsburg for its #35 A424 in the expectation that he will have recovered from the back injuries sustained in a crash in testing last month. Philippe Sinault, boss of the Signatech team that runs the factory Alpines, stated last weekend at the Imola WEC round that he was “expecting good news” from Habsburg this week. But it is understood that the Austrian has yet to receive the sign-off from doctors to get back in a racing car.
Earl Bamber is listed in the Porsche 963 LMDh, but is more likely to be in Laguna Seca fulfilling his obligations in the IMSA series as part of Ford’s GT Daytona Pro programme with the Mustang GT3. Larry Holt, whose Multimatic organisation masterminds Ford’s GT3 activities, said at Imola that it is likely that this drive will take precedence for Tincknell.
Toyota Hypercar class reserve driver Ritomo Miyata will drive the #78 Auto Sport Promotion Lexus RC F GT3 in place of Kelvin van der Linde. The South African will racing for the Abt Cupra FE squad in Berlin instead of Nico Muller in his capacity as reserve driver for the German team.
Miyata will be making his second race appearance in one of Toyota sister marque Lexus’s GT3 cars after contesting the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA round with the Vasser Sullivan squad. Iron Dames Lamborghini driver Doriane Pin will miss the Spa WEC race to begin her Formula Renault Regional Championship by Alpine campaign at Hockenheim with the same team. She will be replaced in the Iron Lynx-run Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2’s all-female line-up by Michelle Gatting, who was part of the team’s WEC line-up alongside Pin and Rahel Frey in 2021-23. Pin will return to the Iron Dames Lamborghini for the Le Mans 24 Hours WEC round in June before concentrating on her single-seater commitments in FRECA and F1 Academy.
