Will Stevens is confirmed this morning as a full season Manor driver for the 2016 FIA WEC as the team also confirmed that they will enter a second Oreca 05 Nissan for the full season with the exception of the Le Mans 24 Hours.
The team’s entry, revealed by DSC back in Autumn 2015 was confirmed at the ACO press conference in Paris earlier this month with Tor Graves named as the nominated driver.
He’ll now be joined in an expanded two car squad by ex Caterham and Manor F1 driver Stevens who joins the WEC after 20 Grand prix starts.
Stevens’ career to this point has solely seen the 24 year old Briton in single seaters though his 2014 Renault 3.5 starts with Strakka Racing will have given him at least an opportunity to observe something of the technology involved in LMP2.
John Booth, Team Principal: “Everything has moved very quickly since we first announced that we would be entering the 2016 World Endurance Championship. It is great news to be running an additional ORECA 05 LM P2, we can’t wait to get started with the season at The Prologue at the end of March.
“It’s great that Will is joining the team, we know his talent and speed from working with him over the last few years in Formula 1 and we are all really looking forward to going racing with him.”
Will Stevens: “The opportunity to continue my relationship with Graeme and John was one that I was very pleased to accept. It gives me a great chance to explore endurance racing, be competitive and go racing with people I enjoyed working with last year so I’m
looking forward to it.
“My objective is to have a number of top level career choices going forward, and to be able to gain experience in endurance racing will hopefully open up my career prospects. I want to keep very busy, enjoy my racing and do some winning and I’m confident that by working again with Manor in WEC I’ll achieve all of those things.”
