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Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA Laurin Heinrich will contest the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and a full IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after all, with Fred Makowiecki confirmed in the Porsche factory driver’s place for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. Revealed by Schumacher CLRT on Wednesday, ex-Porsche star Makowiecki will join Ayhancan Guven and Matt Campbell in the No. 22 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo for the Belgian endurance classic on June 25-28. Originally, Heinrich was due to be in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and Intercontinental GT Challenge centerpiece, prior to being named to JDC-Miller Motorsports’ Porsche 963 for the majority of the WeatherTech Championship season. Watkins Glen, which clashes with the 24 Hours of Spa, was the only GTP race Heinrich was due to miss, with the 24-year-old set to return to the No. 7 Penske Porsche for the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans. The German driver is expected to slot into the No. 5 JDC-Mill...

Photo: Cadillac Cadillac swept the top two spots in opening official practice session for this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, as Earl Bamber set the fastest time aboard the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA entry ahead of first qualifying on Wednesday. Bamber registered a best effort of 3:23.786 with around 20 minutes remaining of the three-hour session, easily surpassing the benchmark set in last year’s FP1 session and coming within just over seven tenths of a second of last year’s pole time. The Kiwi driver, who had earlier taken the top spot with a 3:24.773, the first sub-3:25 lap of the week at the Circuit de la Sarthe, ended up 1.582 seconds clear of the WTR Cadillac, which led much of the session after a first-hour flyer from Jordan Taylor. The session wasn’t entirely problem-free for the No. 38 car, however, as it was brought into the garage early to repair floor damage sustained from curb usage. Cadillac looked on course for a top-three lockout heading into th...

Photo: MPS Agency Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific Selected Driver Enzo Trulli says he is relishing a “special month” in which he is set to make his debut in two of the world’s major endurance races, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. Trulli, who succeeded Dorian Boccolacci in the Selected Driver role this year, is taking on Le Mans this week as part of Algarve Pro Racing’s No. 25 lineup in the LMP2 Pro-Am division together with Jake Hughes and Michael Jensen. Two weeks later, he will make his 24H Spa bow driving for Pure Rxcing in a Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo as he continues to build his experience in GT3 machinery. ‘This month will be quite special for m e, first for Le Mans and then for Spa, two of the biggest races endurance races in the world,” Trulli told Sportscar365. “It was an amazing experience to try the [Le Mans] track in real life. It’s just amazing.   Now I understand why everyone wants to win here, ...

Source: Sports Car 365

Photo: Florent Gooden/DPPI Mike Conway appears increasingly likely to leave Toyota Racing at the end of the current FIA World Endurance Championship season, in a move that would put an end to a relationship with the marque that stretches back more than a decade. Conway has been a full-time member of the Toyota WEC stable since the 2015 season, having made his first outings for the Cologne-based organization in 2014. In that time, he has been part of the 2019/20 and 2021 title-winning crews, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the latter year with Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez. However, Conway has for some time been regarded as the most likely member of the current Toyota roster to depart in the event that it elects to make a change for the 2027 season amid a driver market that has swung into action earlier than normal. The 42-year-old has been linked with a move away from Toyota, with Ford and McLaren believed to be among his potential destinations. Asked what his future c...

Photo: Julian Delfosse/DPPI Peugeot development driver Doriane Pin has set her sights on an eventual FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar seat with the French manufacturer after making her full-time return to endurance racing this year. The 22-year-old French driver was unveiled as a member of the Peugeot roster at the end of March  and is combining her new role with a full season in the European Le Mans Series in the LMP2 Pro-Am class with the Duqueine squad. Pin previously contested a full season of the WEC in 2023 with Preme in LMP2 before switching her main focus to single-seaters for the last two years in the Formula Regional European Championship and the all-female F1 Academy series. But now she says her hope is to remain at Peugeot in the coming years and prove that she deserves a chance of a race seat with the Satory manufacturer. “I have been in the sim, developing the car, and I was at Spa with the full team to see them get their first pole position after five...

Photo: Florent Gooden/DPPI Eric Powell says making his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut is something he’s “worked for my whole life” as the 40-year-old Florida native hopes to proudly fly the American flag in one of two Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs on the LMGT3 grid. Powell, who received the call-up to join Proton Competition’s reshuffled full season FIA World Endurance Championship lineup this year, has been quickly coming to grips with racing on the global stage for the first time, after only previously competed in North America until this year. The 2021 TC America powered by Skip Barber Racing School TCA champion, who has also spent time in Pirelli GT4 America and IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, stepped up to GT World Challenge America powered by AWS last year in Dollahite Racing’s Mustang GT3, which led to an end-of-year tryout in Proton’s Mustang at the WEC rookie test in Bahrain. Powell, a former stunt driver at Walt Disney World, was then confirmed for a...