Connect with us

FIA WEC

Inter Europol Confirms WEC LMP2 Program for 2021

ELMS outfit Inter Europol Competition to make step up to FIA WEC in 2021…

Image: Inter Europol Competition

Inter Europol Competition will make its FIA World Endurance Championship full-season debut next year running an Oreca 07 Gibson in the LMP2 category.

The Polish squad has confirmed an expansion of its racing activities which currently consist of programs in the European and Asian Le Mans Series with Ligier LMP2 and LMP3 cars.

Inter Europol also recently fielded an Oreca in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Motul Petit Le Mans and will return to the North American series next month with an entry into the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

It plans to take delivery of a new Oreca chassis in December ahead of its WEC program.

The team’s move to the WEC comes after two seasons in the ELMS LMP2 ranks.

Team regular Jakub Smiechowski was joined by a host of drivers including ex-DTM man Adrien Tambay and former LMP1 racer Mathias Beche in 2019, before Rene Binder and Matevos Isaakyan came on board as full-season hires for the 2020 campaign.

The team has also been runner-up in the ELMS LMP3 class on two occasions and won the 2018-19 Asian LMS category title.

Inter Europol is set to continue its ELMS and Asian LMP3 programs next year, although no word has been given on the future of its Ligier JS P217 Gibson LMP2 efforts.

Drivers for its six-race global program are set to be confirmed at a later date.

“We are taking another very exciting next step,” said team principal Sascha Fassbender.

“Because we knew we wanted to do the WEC, we bought an Oreca 07. The car will be delivered in December. To prepare for this we did Petit Le Mans in an Oreca and we are going to do Sebring in November, in the same car.

“We know it is going to be a lot of hard work, but the team is very motivated. We will push on and look forward to getting to know the car.”

In addition to confirming its WEC expansion, Inter Europol has also announced that recently-crowned IMSA Prototype Challenge champions Matt Bell and Naveen Rao will join Smiechowski in the Oreca for Sebring.

Smiechowski was joined at Petit Le Mans by Rob Hodes and last year’s Prototype Challenge series winner Austin McCusker.

“I had to get used to the Oreca very quickly at Petit Le Mans and found I really enjoyed racing the car,” said Smiechowski.

“Obviously, I knew we ordered a new car some time ago and that motivated me enormously. Our next race is Sebring where I will share the car with Matt Bell and Naveen Rao.

“It will be a busy and hard year for us next year, with hopefully not as many obstacles as we have faced this year.”

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

Click to comment
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

More in FIA WEC