FIA World Endurance Championship confirm Bahrain rookie test line-up

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) has announced the official roster of drivers that will be competing in the series’ end-of-season Bahrain Rookie Test, scheduled to take place on 13 November at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

The test is being held a day after this upcoming weekend’s Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, the final round of the 2022 WEC campaign.

There is a strong mix of drivers across the classes.

The same cars will be driven on the same track with some of the same drivers as in the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, but there will be a number of fresh faces also taking part.

The official WEC rookies were already announced.

Lilou Wadoux from France will be seen out in action in whichever Hypercar wins the 2022 title; Lorenzo Colombo of Italy jumps into the LMGTE Pro class, Doriane Pin of France will get a taste of LMP2, and Finn Gehrsitz of Germany gets a go in LMGTE Am.

Wadoux will become the first woman to drive a Hypercar, and she will also be the first woman to drive a car in the premier endurance racing category since Vanina Ickx in 2011.

These Rookies will all get at least 30 laps behind the wheel of the championship winning car for their allocated category.

Wadoux will be joined by an interesting mix of drivers in the Hypercar class, with the other runners across the classes selected by the teams.

For Peugeot, it’s a mix of youth and experience in action in the 9X8, with Germany’s Maximilian Gunther, Dane Malthe Jakobsen, Frenchman Yann Ehrlacher, and Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne suiting up.

Vandoorne comes to the test as the recently-crowned FIA Formula E World Champion, with two Le Mans appearances, and 41 F1 starts with McLaren to his name.

Over at Alpine, regular driver Matthieu Vaxiviere from France could be joined by Wadoux—depending on the championship result—and an as-yet unnamed driver.

Meanwhile, at Toyota it’s their regular drivers plus Wadoux if the title goes to Toyota.

There are a number of other notable names in the other WEC classes.

The Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain takes place this Friday and Saturday at BIC.

Tickets for the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain cost just BD5 for adults and BD2.5 for kids for the two-day weekend.

They can be purchased online at bahraingp. com or by calling the BIC Hotline on +973-17450000.

The WEC finale will see a packed 37-car field line up on the BIC grid.

They will be competing in four race categories from day to night around BIC’s 5.412-kilometre track, making for a brilliant spectacle that flags off under the afternoon sun and then wraps up under the stars while being brilliantly lit by BIC’s state-of-the-art floodlights.

The WEC action promises to be intense as the 2022 season’s titles are still up for grabs.

There will also be plenty of action in support of the WEC from the WTCR Race of Bahrain, part of the 2022 WTCR-FIA World Touring Car Cup, and the Porsche Sprint Challenge Middle East.

Furthermore, to complement the racing on the track, BIC has lined up an incredible series of off-track entertainment for the race weekend.

These include incredible stunt shows from The Stannage Stunt Team as well as Terry Grant and Lee Bowers, plus a classic car show featuring some of the rarest cars around, live music and a kids’ zone— something for the whole family to enjoy.