Foster Replaces Gaunt in Eurasia’s Spa Lineup

Nick Foster will replace Daniel Gaunt in Eurasia Motorsport’s driver lineup for this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship round at Spa-Francorchamps.

Gaunt is unable to take part due to “travel complications from his native New Zealand” after originally being slated to drive.

Foster, who contested the 2017 WEC season with Porsche GTE-Am squad Gulf Racing, will step in to share the No. 35 Ligier JS P217 Gibson with Nobuya Yamanaka and ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi.

The Australian is already in Europe because of his role competing in the Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy series which is holding its concluding rounds in Berlin this week.

Spa won’t be Foster’s first encounter with Eurasia, having previously driven with the team in the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series.

However, it is not known if he will also have to take Gaunt’s spot at next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“We’re fortunate in having such a talented race driver in Nick Foster available to us at such short notice,” said Eurasia team principal Mark Goddard.

“In an ideal scenario, I would not want to call him in so late, but we are in a very fluid situation due to COVID-19 and the problems associated with the movement of people around the world.

“We at Eurasia are doing everything in our power to field a strong package and we hope that there will be no further hurdles for us to overcome over the coming week.

“Our plans for the 24 Hours of Le Mans next month remain on track, but we obviously must be mindful of the global situation.”

Eurasia is making its WEC debut in the LMP2 class which is made up of ten entries for WEC’s return after the COVID-19 interruption.

The team had already made one lineup change prior to Foster’s late signing, with Merhi coming on board to replace Nick Cassidy who can’t race at Spa because of its proximity to the Super GT round at Suzuka on Aug. 22-23.