FRECA Driver Masson Joins Kessel for 8H Bahrain

French single-seater racer Esteban Masson will make his FIA World Endurance Championship debut in this weekend’s 8 Hours of Bahrain driving for Kessel Racing.

The 19-year-old contested more than half of this year’s Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season with Sainteloc Racing and is also a title contender in the Eurocup-3 series, but has not competed in sports cars before.

According to the latest version of the Bahrain entry list, Masson will share the No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo with Daniel Serra and Takeshi Kimura.

Masson, who finished second in Race 2 of this year’s Paul Ricard FRECA round, replaces Scott Huffaker as the designated Silver-rated driver in the lineup.

It is the second crew adjustment for Kessel in as many WEC rounds after Serra missed the 6 Hours of Fuji due to family-related reasons and was replaced by recently-crowned Super Formula champion Ritomo Miyata.

Masson’s WEC debut will come in the final race for the GTE-Am class before it gets replaced by LMGT3 next season.

Over at AF Corse, Franck Dezoteux will make his first WEC appearance in a year, stepping into the No. 21 Ferrari alongside Kei Cozzolino and Simon Mann.

The French Bronze-rated driver contested the full 2022 season with Gabriel Aubry and Pierre Ragues. Dezoteux is Mann’s fifth different Bronze co-driver of the current campaign after Stefano Costantini, Diego Alessi, Julien Piguet and Hiroki Koizumi.

Other driver changes for the season finale include Ryan Briscoe joining Floyd Vanwall Racing Team in place of the Super GT-bound Joao Paulo de Oliveira, and Australian competitor Liam Talbot substituting for Satoshi Hoshino at D’station Racing.