G-Drive, ByKolles Included on 35-Car Entry for Spa

G-Drive Racing and ByKolles Racing have been included on the 35-car entry list for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s second visit to Spa-Francorchamps this season.

The Russian-entered G-Drive operation will return to the LMP2 grid with an Oreca 07 Gibson for its European Le Mans Series lineup of Jean-Eric Vergne, Roman Rusinov and European LMP3 champion Job van Uitert.

G-Drive clinched the ELMS teams’ title last year through Vergne, Rusinov and Andrea Pizzitola, and also took a victory when it made a similar Total Six Hours of Spa cameo in the 2018-19 ‘Super Season’ opener.

Its parent team TDS Racing has also made a change to its full-season Oreca LMP2 driver lineup with ELMS race winner and ex-Formula 2 racer Norman Nato coming in to replace Loic Duval.

2013 Le Mans winner Duval is tied up with the DTM season-opener at Hockenheim, which the Frenchman contested alongside his WEC commitments at the same event last year.

ByKolles Racing, meanwhile, is back on the LMP1 grid after missing last weekend’s 1000 Miles of Sebring following a mid-season change of engine provider.

The No. 4 ENSO CLM P1/01 is set for its first race under Gibson V8 power, after the Austrian team contested the first five races of the campaign with Nissan’s turbocharged V6 unit.

ABB FIA Formula E Championship racer Tom Dillmann is the only driver confirmed in the ByKolles lineup so far.

Elsewhere in the field, Andre Lotterer will return to Rebellion Racing’s No. 1 R-13 Gibson after skipping Sebring for a Formula E sim test, while Nathanael Berthon formally takes Mathias Beche’s place in the team’s No. 3 car alongside Gustavo Menezes and Thomas Laurent.

22-year-old Australian James Allen will co-drive DragonSpeed’s LMP1-class BR Engineering BR1 Gibson in place of Renger van der Zande, who is tied up with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Mid-Ohio that weekend.

Additionally, Brendon Hartley will once again fill in for Jenson Button at SMP Racing as the 2009 Formula 1 world champion takes part in the Super GT round at Fuji.

The GTE-Pro field returns to 10 cars after Corvette Racing’s Sebring guest outing, with all five manufacturers returning to their two-driver combinations for Spa, while GTE-Am is unchanged from the previous round.