The fifth season of the FIA World Endurance Championship gets underway on 17th April with the 6 Hours of Silverstone, the first event on the expanded nine-race 2016 calendar.
Silverstone has traditionally been a happy hunting ground for Audi, with three wins in the last four seasons. Toyota became the only manufacturer to break Audi’s stranglehold at the ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ in 2014, although they have twice qualified on pole position, compared to Audi and Porsche’s one time each.
Defending event winners André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler also took victory in the first 6 Hours of Silverstone in 2012, a race entered by 33 of the drivers also present on the 2016 entry list.
Among them is 32-year old James Rossiter, who makes his return to the WEC with ByKolles for the first time since Fuji 2014. Rossiter will be the 24th British driver on the grid, which is nine more than last year.
Fifteen drivers will be making their WEC debuts (excluding any one-off appearances at Le Mans), although many names will already be familiar to motorsport fans. Ford’s Andy Priaulx MBE is a three-time FIA WTCC champion, Rebellion Racing’s Nelson Piquet Jr won the inaugural FIA Formula E championship, while Manor pairing Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi were team-mates last year in Formula One.
Russia’s Vitaly Petrov is another to make his WEC debut at Silverstone, and brings the ex-F1 contingent to 16. The most successful of those, 9-time Grand Prix winner Mark Webber, returns to defend his 2015 World Championship title with Porsche and will hope to become the series’ first ever double champion alongside Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard.
WEC Debutants (excluding Le Mans appearances)
Nelson Piquet Jr
Vitaly Petrov
Gustavo Menezes
Stephane Richelmi
Will Stevens
Roberto Merhi
James Jakes
Matthew Rao
Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti
Billy Johnson
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker
Michael Wainwright
Yutaka Yamagishi
Entrants to Silverstone 6h in 2012 and 2016
André Lotterer
Benoît Tréluyer
Marcel Fässler
Nicolas Lapierre
Kazuki Nakajima
Nicolas Prost
Neel Jani
Nick Leventis
Danny Watts
Jonny Kane
Olivier Pla
Tor Graves
Pierre Ragues
Nelson Panciatici
Roman Rusinov
James Rossiter
David Heinemeier Hansson
Dominik Kraihamer
Nicolas Minassian
Ricardo González
Ryan Dalziel
Stéphane Sarrazin
Brendon Hartley
Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz
Marc Lieb
Stefan Mücke
Darren Turner
Joël Camathias
Fernando Rees
Christian Ried
Paolo Ruberti
Jonny Adam
Photos: 1) Marino Franchitti, Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx from Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK; 2) SMP Racing's No.37 BR01-Nissan will be driven by Vitaly Petrov/Kirill Ladygin/Victor Shaytar; 3) Winners of the 2012 6 Hours of Silverstone from Audi Sport, Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer/Marcel Fassler.
