Tockwith Planning Partial Season WEC LMP2 Effort

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Tockwith Motorsports could add up to four regular-season FIA World Endurance Championship rounds to its schedule, in addition to a return to the European Le Mans Series and debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year.

The reigning Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 champions, which received an auto-invite to the French endurance classic for LMP2, is ramping up for an expanded European schedule with its new Ligier JS P217 Gibson, according to team principal Simon Moore.

“Looking at WEC, we would do Spa and Nürburgring at the beginning of the year, and Shanghai and Bahrain at the end of the year,” Moore told Sportscar365.

Nigel Moore and Phil Hanson will drive the No. 34 Ligier for the ELMS races, and will be joined by an as-yet-unconfirmed third driver for Le Mans.

However, Simon Moore said that the plan is just to run the two full-season drivers for the WEC rounds.

“We can bring a third driver in, but at the moment we’re happy with the two,” he said.

Moore also said that there were initial plans to enter the Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, but the British squad has decided against it.

“There were ideas that, physically, we could do Sebring but it’s not doable really,” he said.

“By the time we’ve got the four WEC rounds in, the two at the beginning and the two at the end, and the ELMS, I think that’s pretty [full].”

The Tockwith entry could mark the only Ligier in the LMP2 class this year, with the full-season entry list, released last week, featuring all Oreca 07 Gibson machinery.

WEC boss Gerard Neveu said he’d welcome additional entries on a race-by-race basis, in the wake of a reduced 28-car grid for this year.

“If there are requests, why not?,” Neveu told Endurance-Info. “We’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis depending on the [track] capacity.”

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.