Rebellion Reveals Lineup, Confirms Further Delay Until 24H Le Mans

Rebellion Racing has confirmed the six drivers for its two Rebellion R-One cars that are entered in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship, while also confirming it will not start its season until the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

LMP1-L Drivers Champions Nicolas Prost, Nick Heidfeld and Mathias Beche will once again share the cockpit of AER-powered the No. 12 entry.

In the second car Dominik Kraihamer will be joined by two new drivers, Alexandre Imperatori and Daniel Abt.

Imperatori raced for KCMG in 2013 and 2014, scoring victories at the WEC rounds at Bahrain and Interlagos.

“First of all, I want to thank the Rebellion Racing team for the trust they place in me this season and I look forward to joining the team,” said Imperatori.

“I am very eager to start working with my new team-mates and contribute to the development of the car to get good results this season.”

“The challenge looks interesting with the new engine and I am confident that this will help us reach a new step.”

German driver Abt, who raced single-seaters until now, will make his sports car debut with the Anglo-Swiss squad.

Abt raced in GP2 and Formula E, but comes from a family well known to sports car racing. His father runs ABT Sportsline, while uncle Christian raced an Audi R8 at Le Mans, finishing third in 2000.

“I’m proud to be contesting the WEC with Rebellion Racing. The team is relaxed, completely professional and has an excellent reputation within the scene,” said Abt.

“This additional program alongside Formula E is an enormous boost for me: I’ll drive a closed cockpit sports car for the first time, share driving duties with two other team-mates and also make my debut at Le Mans in the 24 Hour race.”

“We are very pleased to confirm our driver line-up for the 2015 season and it’s nice to have a good level of continuity in our team,” said Rebellion Racing team manager Bart Hayden.

“We have a good base of experience and speed with Nico, Nick, Mathias and Dominik who are all with us again. We welcome Alexandre and Daniel to our team, we are confident that they will be positive additions and that they will help us to take the challenge to our competitors in the LMP1 field.”

Rebellion will miss the opening rounds at Silverstone and Spa, a result of the decision to change from a Toyota to an AER engine.

There was originally hope at least one of the ORECA-built cars would make the Belgian round, but it’s since been ruled out by the team.

“We are a little late out of the starting blocks this year, but we firmly believe that our 2015 LMP1 cars will be even more competitive, so we are looking forward to getting the cars onto the tracks soon,” Hayden added.