Young guns coming to Shanghai for WEC
This weekend’s 6 Hours of Shanghai will see the debut of some new faces in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and also the welcome return of some who are very familiar to the WEC.
Although the team itself is new to the championship, the entire driver line up of the No.29 Pegasus Racing entry – David Cheng/Ho-Pin Tung/Alex Brundle – has previous experience of both the WEC and the Shanghai International Circuit on which they will compete on Sunday 1st November in their Morgan Nissan (see story HERE). Welcome back to all of them!
Making his sportscar debut in China will be young Swiss driver, Mathéo Tuscher, in the No.13 Rebellion Racing R-One AER. Tuscher will replace Daniel Abt in Shanghai and Bahrain due to the German’s Formula E commitments, and will be teamed with Dominik Kraihamer and Alexandre Imperatori in the LMP1 car.
Despite only being 18 years of age, Tuscher has been competing in GP3 for the last two season, but won the Formula Pilota China in 2011 in his first racing season in single seaters, winning eight races. He was runner up in the 2012 Formula 2 Championship with two wins and nine podiums.
Mathéo Tuscher said: “I feel so honoured to be able to drive the two remaining FIA WEC races of 2015 for Rebellion Racing! Endurance racing has interested me since I can remember, and I truly admire how Rebellion Racing as a Swiss private team is so successful in this strong international platform. This is going to be my first experience with such a car, and I have a lot of respect for it. Pit stops are going to be a new experience, as well as the traffic with cars at different speeds.
“It is going to be great to be racing in Shanghai again, where I did two races in the Formula Abarth Asian Championship, as well as the race in Bahrain which is a circuit that I do not yet know.”
Also new to the WEC this weekend is Tom Dillmann, who will make his World Championship debut in the No.36 Alpine A450B Nissan alongside Nelson Panciatici and Paul-Loup Chatin. The 26-year-old Frenchman takes the seat of Vincent Capillaire for the final two races of the season and comes with strong single-seater credentials: 2010 German F3 Champion, a race-winning graduate of GP2 and poles and podiums in Formula Renault 3.5.
The 6 Hours of Shanghai will not mark Dillmann’s sports car debut as he has taken part in several GT3 races this year, but it will be the first time he’s driven an LMP2 prototype.
Photo: PLACE DE LA REPUBLIQUE (LE MANS, FRANCE), 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, SCRUTINEERING, MONDAY 8 JUNE 2015. Ho-Pin Tung (left) and David Cheng (right) will both represent China as well as Pegasus Racing this weekend in the 6 Hours of Shanghai.
