The Swiss Rebellion Racing team has been a stalwart of the FIA World Endurance Championship competing in the small sub-category for LMP1 Private Teams or, as it has been known this year, LMP1-L.
The team has done such an excellent job in winning three consecutive championship titles, albeit against limited competition in 2013 and 2014, that it is too easy to overlook its achievements.
This season the Bart Hayden-managed team has competed with two, all-new Toyota-powered Rebellion R-One prototypes, the introduction of which at the second round of the championship in Spa-Francorchamps wasn’t without its technical headaches and challenges.
In every way, Rebellion has conformed to the image of a top-level professional racing team and every team member has worked diligently to conquer the problems which have arisen. The sight and sound of the magnificent red and white prototypes has been a joy to behold throughout the season.
The No.12 entry, piloted by Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and – having moved across from the ELMS – Swiss driver Mathias Beche, is the comprehensive winner of the title this year after the No.13 entry (Andrea Belicchi, Dominik Kraihamer and 2013 GP2 Champion Fabio Leimer) failed to score points in the first four rounds – the WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone and Spa, 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Lone Star Le Mans event in Texas. The Italian-Austrian-Swiss trio has enjoyed a better second half of the season, however, and taken victory in Fuji and Bahrain.
The Rebellion R-One was developed for the team by ORECA, and although it doesn’t run a hybrid Energy Recovery System (ERS) like its big brothers from Audi, Porsche and Toyota, the 850kg closed prototype conforms to a highly sophisticated set of technical rules. Without the testing budgets of the factory teams, and due to the late arrival of the new cars (Rebellion’s Lola Toyotas were used for the opening round of the season), the team has had a steep learning curve to follow in 2014, most of which has had to be conducted in public at races. That progress has been made can be clearly seen from the results in the last three rounds.
Fiona Miller
