In the “where do the former Manor F1 drivers land for 2016" story, Will Stevens has found a new home with the same team name: the Manor WEC program.
The 24-year-old Englishman joins Tor Graves as the first two announced drivers for the team spearheaded by John Booth and Graeme Lowdon.
He also joins Alexander Rossi in finding a new full-season landing point. Rossi will race in the Verizon IndyCar Series with Bryan Herta’s entry, now with Andretti Autosport.
The team’s also confirmed a second Oreca 05 Nissan to join its existing one announced earlier this month. Such an entry would bring the full-season WEC grid count up to 33 cars.
Exact lineups haven’t been set yet, but for Stevens, the move makes a lot of sense.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Stevens has also been mentioned in the IndyCar silly season this offseason. The WEC and IndyCar have three conflicts this year: the Long Beach (April), Boston (September) and Sonoma (September) IndyCar rounds clash with the Silverstone, Mexico City and Austin WEC races.
It would make it unlikely, then, that Stevens would be able to participate in anything more than a one-off in an IndyCar this season.