Edgar: Staying as Silver-Rated Driver “Opens More Doors”

Jonny Edgar says remaining as a Silver-rated driver next year “opens a few more doors” after a successful appeal of his promotion to a Gold.

Edgar, along with fellow Corvette-affiliated driver Alec Udell, were among the few pilots to have been been re-classified back to Silver rating by the FIA after initially getting bumped up to Gold in the release of the provisional driver ratings list in September.

Since the British driver’s revised grading was confirmed, he has already been announced as continuing as the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup pilot for the AO Racing Oreca 07 Gibson in the LMP2 class of the WeatherTech Endurance Championship next year alongside Dane Cameron and PJ Hyett, who took the season-long title.

The 21-year-old is also keen to add another program alongside that, although it is believed unlikely he will remain at TF Sport in the FIA World Endurance Championship as a decision for Ben Keating’s Silver-rated driver came prior to Edgar’s re-grading.

“I’m happy it’s allowed me to go back and race in IMSA again,” Edgar told Sportscar365. “With LMP2 being a Bronze-Silver-Pro lineup, if I was not Silver I wouldn’t be there.

“And it’s the same in WEC; you need a Silver in the lineup, so it opens a few more doors and there’s more opportunities.

“I’m happy to have one program in place but I would like to do more. Everyone’s the same, I want to race as much as possible.

“If there’s a chance, I would love to be back in WEC, but also if there’s an opportunity in ELMS, I would also really like to race there – I really enjoyed it when I raced in the ELMS last year (when he won the title in the TF-run AO LMP2 entry).”

Asked if the news of his successful appeal to remain a Silver was a relief, Edgar replied: “Yeah, it was nice to hear that. As a Gold, I was starting to have some conversations, but nothing was confirmed. And then, as soon as I was Silver, then the AO thing was confirmed pretty quickly.”

Edgar is relishing the chance to remain part of the AO lineup following its successful 2025 campaign but is determined to try to add a victory in one of the WeatherTech Championship’s big enduros to its title triumph.

“Everything AO won this year, IMSA champions, they won Le Mans [the Pro-Am class] and they won ELMS last year, so I think the only thing we missed was winning one of the big IMSA endurance races, which is a goal for everyone,” he explained.

“Next year the goal again is to win the championship, but it would be cool to try to win one of the big endurance races in IMSA – that’s something that’s missing that I would like to achieve.”

Edgar did win the LMGT3 class in the opening round of the WEC this year in the No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R alongside Daniel Juncadella and Keating but the trio did not finish on the podium again after that and ended up sixth in the final drivers’ standings.

They were sixth in the Bahrain season finale after Juncadella was involved in a close scrap with Augusto Farfus in the closing stages, with Juncadella being fined for his actions in the heat of the battle.