Who’s new to the WEC for 2021? Part 2

The recently-announced FIA WEC entry list revealed a total of seven new teams for the 2021 season.

Last week we gave the lowdown on two of those teams: Richard Mille Racing Team and Inter Europol Competition. This week, however, we introduce three further names who will join the WEC’s LMP2 category this season: ARC Bratislava, Team WRT and RealTeam Racing.

First up, we have:

ARC Bratislava

Founded in 1997, ARC Bratislava is an experienced GT and LMP team that will make its first full-time season entry in the WEC’s LMP2 category this year.

The Slovakian-entered team will field the only Ligier JS P217 car out of the category’s 11 entries – the rest will compete with an ORECA chassis.  

ARC Bratislava has confirmed team owner Miroslav Konopka will drive for the squad with the other two drivers set to be announced in due course. Konopka, who is a Bronze-rated driver, has competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on four occasions already – with ARC Bratislava (2017 and 2019) in Ligier LMP2 machinery and earlier appearances in Porsche GT cars.

Team WRT

Belgium’s Team WRT, who normally competes in GT and Touring Car racing, will also line up on the 2021 LMP2 grid with another ORECA as part of a new long-term endurance racing project.

The oufit competed in last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual but the only real-life performance for Team WRT in the sportscar scene was a one-off at the Spa round of the European Le Mans Series in 2016, finishing second after a late puncture hindered its chance of victory.

Team WRT have confirmed 29-year-old Robin Frijns will drive the ORECA this season, the Dutchman having been part of the WRT family since 2015.  The other two drivers will be announced in the upcoming weeks. 

The WEC will be a new experience for Frijns, who has been successfully developing parallel careers in single-seater (with many titles in single seater including the FR 3.5 Series and race wins in GP2 and Formula E) and tin-tops, namely in GT3 and DTM. 

Frijns commented: “I am really looking forward to being reunited with Team WRT. We have had great results in the past, being successful straightaway. We won two Blancpain GT Series title, one Overall and one Sprint, and the goal now is to go for success straight away - as we did in GT3.”

RealTeam Racing

RealTeam Racing has confirmed an LMP2 entry in this year’s WEC with the ORECA 07 Gibson.

The Swiss-based team will make its debut on the world endurance racing stage after spending the previous three seasons competing in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), last year finishing third in the LMP3 Teams’ Championship.

Confirmed to drive for RealTeam Racing will be team owner, Esteban Garcia, who will be joined by experienced drivers and Frenchmen, Loïc Duval and Norman Nato. Switzerland’s David Droux has been named as the team’s reserve driver. 

Check back on FIAWEC.com later this week for part three of our “Who’s new for 2021” series where we take a look at the new teams who are set to join the highly-competitive LMGTE Am category.