Eurasia Motorsport have confirmed that Tristan Gommendy will join their 2015 ELMS duo of Pu Jun Jin and Nick de Bruijn aboard a brand new Oreca 05 Nissan for a return to the Series in 2016.
The team finished 6th in the 2015 European Le Mans Series, its first year in Europe, with an Oreca 03R (above)Nissan, and have decided to return to the European Series with their new car after evaluating a potential FIA WEC campaign.
“All the ELMS events are flyaway races for us so we are already set up to compete in WEC and we seriously considered entering the 2016 World Championship. However we decided to stay in ELMS with a view to being as competitive as possible and look to 2017 to move up to WEC.
“We feel with Tristan on board we have a very strong driver line up which will give us a chance of being competitive in the European Le Mans Series.
Tristan is a platinum driver for a good reason, he has a wealth of experience in Formula Cars having raced in F3, World Series, GP2, Superleague and Champ Cars plus he has proven to be one of the fastest LMP2 drivers out there. He stepped in for us at the Fuji round of Asian Le Mas and did a fantastic job which made the decision to race together in 2016 very easy. He is also a winner of the Macau GP and anyone who can do that has to be more than just really good.
Pu Jun Jin is developing into a good LMP2 driver and is attracting a lot of attention in China which is good for the team and for LMP racing in general. Nick de Bruijn will stay with the team and a third driver will join the line up. The driver we have targeted is extremely fast and experienced and I believe the combination will give us a real shot at the title.
“If we gain an entry we do want to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours and a warm up at Spa WEC round would help. However its dependent on us receiving an entry.
In addition to the team’s 2016 ELMS plans Eurasia will continue in the Asian Le Mans Series where the team contested the first two rounds with an Oreca 03R Nissan (above), an entry that will expand to two cars (with the addition of the team’s 2015 ELMS chassis), for the last two rounds of the current season.
