Toyota have confirmed their 2015 LMP1 line-up with the not unexpected news that Mike Conway becomes a full-time factory driver for the coming season.
Toyota have also taken the opportunity to reshuffle their driver squads again, the second consecutive season they have done so after swapping Stephane Sarrazin and Nicolas Lapierre for 2014.
2015’s pair of revised Toyota TS040 Hybrids will see the #1 car feature 2014 drivers’ World Champions Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi joined by Kazuki Nakajima. Alex Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway will share the #2.
All six 2015 drivers have taken race wins in the WEC with both Conway and Sarrazin having also repeated that feat in LMP2.
An announcement regarding a test and reserve driver will be made in the coming weeks. There is no confirmation yet on whether Lapierre has opted to accept an offer of a test and development role.
The 2015 driver line-up announcement comes on the same day as Toyota confirmed plans for a World Rally Championship entry in 2017. Toyota Racing though have made it clear that it remains committed endurance racing, “which will not be adversely affected by the WRC project”. DSC understands that a multi-year corporate commitment to the FIA WEC is in place.
Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Team President: “We are very happy to confirm our driver line-up for 2015. We have worked with all our drivers for a long time now and have developed very strong relationships. This stability and consistency has been a significant part of our recent success so it was a priority when planning for 2015 and beyond. Based on our experiences in 2014, we have decided to modify the line-ups for each car and we believe this will give us the optimum overall performance as the individual driving styles are now well matched. All our drivers are WEC race winners and we are confident they will add to their tally this season and in the future.”
