WRT has landed in LMP2 with great success. In their first campaign in the silver endurance class, the team won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the WEC title. As if this were not enough, the structure also won the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), successes that have allowed the team to have up to four places to compete in La Sarthe this year. Two for the LMP2 prototypes with which he regularly competes in the WEC and another two for the aforementioned successes.
The Oreca 07-Gibson with which Team WRT will compete in the WEC will wear the numbers #31 and #41, although the latter will compete under the RealTeam banner. Robin Frijns, Sean Gelael and René Rast will compete together in the first, while Ferdinand Habsburg, Norman Nato and Rui Andradre will join forces in the second. A selection of highly talented drivers who in Le Mans they will have three other additional companionsin this case three pilots of enormous success and recognition in GT3 races. A very different bet for the team’s third LMP2 at La Sarthe.
Confirmed the decision not to use the fourth invitation, the use of the third place available was subject to the appearance of a project of interest and this has not been long in coming. In fact, WRT’s third Oreca will be driven by Mirko Bortolotti, Dries Vanthoor and Rolf Ineichen. Three great stars of the GT3 planet that compete for different manufacturers are united in this interesting project in which talent is the common note. Bortolotti and Ineichen are Lamborghini drivers, while the youngest of the Vanthoor normally defends the interests of Audi.
Despite being direct rivals in GT3 today, Bortolotti, Vanthoor and Ineichen coincided under the WRT umbrella in the 2020 season, the only one that Mirko Bortolotti has contested as an official Audi driver. In this campaign, Bortolotti and Ineichen shared Audi at the ADAC GT Masters, while both shared work with Dries Vanthoor at GTWC Europe. What’s more, all three competed together at the 2020 24 Hours of Daytona in the GTD class.
It just so happens that Bortolotti and Ineichen, Lamborghini drivers, have never been at the controls of an LMP2 prototype, something that Vanthoor has done when contesting the 4 Hours of Spa of the European Le Mans Series in 2016 at the wheel of a Ligier JS P2. What’s more, Dries has also competed at Le Mans on several occasions and took victory in the LMGTE-Am class with a JMW Motorsport’s Ferrari in 2017. Last year he took pole in LMGTE-Pro with HubAuto Racing’s privateer Porsche.
Photos: Team WRT