More than 10 drivers bringing F1 experience back to Texas<\/i><\/p>\n
30 August Austin, TX- The World Endurance Championship returns to Texas this weekend for the Lone Star Le Mans, featuring a 36-car field for the six hour enduro on Sunday. The global championship has attracted not only some of the biggest brands in motorsport including Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Corvette and Lamborghini, but it has also brought an incredibly talented field of over 100 drivers.<\/p>\n
The racers have all built their careers on the strength of wins and championships around the globe to be able to race at this level. And among those top tier drivers, a full 12 of them will arrive in Austin with the previous experience of driving a F1 machine there, with 11 of them having competed in F1 at the track.<\/p>\n
2009 F1 World Champion and 15-time F1 race winner Jenson Button will be competing at the track once again, this time on board the No. 38 Hertz Team Jota along with Philip Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen. Having raced at the 3.4-mile circuit for McLaren four times, Button also made his NASCAR debut at the track in 2023.<\/p>\n
Toyota Gazoo Racing\u2019s Kamui Kobayashi and Brandon Hartley, as well as Hertz Team Jota\u2019s Will Stevens and Peugeot Total Energies\u2019 Jean Eric Vergne are all former F1 racers at COTA. And the list goes on, as former Force India pilot Paul Di Resta (No. 94 Peugeot Total Energies) returns to COTA, this time with co-drivers Lo\u00efc Duval and Stoffel Vandoorne, who also raced F1 at the circuit in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n
Daniil Kvyat had multiple F1 starts at COTA, and returns with the No. 63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 entry this weekend having also raced at COTA in his first foray in NASCAR last year.<\/p>\n
Yet another F1 pilot set for the Texas enduro is Robert Kubica, who will race the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P this weekend along with Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye.\u00a0 Team WRT\u2019s Sean Gelael has also taken to the track in F1 machinery, having driven a Toro Rosso in a wet test session earlier in his career.<\/p>\n
With the Lone Star Le Mans marking the first time for WEC to race at the circuit in over four years, could that F1 experience turn into an advantage for these seven pilots?<\/p>\n
For Gelael, who will co-drive the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4 with Darren Leung and Augusto Farfus in the Lone Star Le Mans, he is certainly counting on his previous experience to add to his confidence heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh I love Austin. My first experience there was with the Toro Rosso F1 car,\u201d said Gelael. \u201cIt was raining so I never really drove there in the dry. I\u2019m looking forward to drive there with the M4 GT3. I think it should be a track that we excel in and I hope that we will have good lasting memories of Austin, Texas. The track and the atmosphere is mega and the city is so vibrant. I can\u2019t wait!\u201d<\/p>\n
Having raced at the circuit with Sauber, Giovinazzi concurs that even with a very different car, arriving at the track with some experience there is helpful as he looks forward to the weekend on board the No. 51 Ferrari 499P along with co-drivers Pier Guidi and James Calado.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course when you know the track it is always easier, and especially because during the race weekend we only get so many laps before the race, so to know the track is always an advantage,\u201d said Giovinazzi.<\/p>\n
When asked about the favorite sections, both Giovinazzi and Gelael have the same response.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, the best section was the first sector-I\u2019ll call it the snake!\u201d said Giovinazzi. \u201cIt is very fast and really tricky because if you make a mistake in any of the corners, it compromises the whole section so it is really difficult. But it is really nice to drive especially in a car with lots of downforce like the 499P.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having been some years between visits, Gelael has no lack of certainty of what he is looking forward to most this weekend when he gets the chance to take to the track once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m looking forward to Sector 1! I think it’s the highlight of the circuit. It’s fast, flowing and you can use a lot of curbs with the M4. I think it will be very cool to drive the M4 on this track.\u201d<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t just the track layout that has these former F1 racers looking forward to the weekend, as the event is a very special edition of the 2024 WEC calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cDriving in the US is always special, especially driving in Texas,\u201d said Giovinazzi. \u201cI remember that there were a lot of fans, and I\u2019m sure with this new WEC how it is growing up, it should be for sure many people there. So we want to do well and we want to enjoy the race in front of a lot of fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I love going to the US. It’s far from home so I don’t go a lot but it’s so nice,\u201d said Gelael. \u201cAustin is a super cool place. The culture, the food and the people are amazing. When I used to go to F1 (it was in October), I would always watch my favorite team\u2019s basketball game (San Antonio Spurs). I know there is no game when we go but hopefully, I get an invite to the facilities!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 10 drivers bringing F1 experience back to Texas 30 August Austin, TX- The World Endurance Championship returns to Texas this weekend for the Lone [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-fia-wec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7502,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions\/7502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}