Rebellion Racing has confirmed it will enter just one car into the remaining five rounds of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship season as it shifts focus to 2017.
Rebellion races in the LMP1 privateer sub-class alongside ByKolles with two cars, and picked up overall podiums at Silverstone and Spa as well as winning the LMP1-L class at Le Mans.
However, with new technical regulations set to be introduced for privateer LMP1 teams for 2017, Rebellion has opted to scale back its involvement to just a single car for the rest of the season.
The no. 13 car shared by Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Matheo Tuscher will take part in the final five rounds, leaving the no. 12 most recently raced by Nico Prost, Nick Heidfeld and Mathias Beche on the sideline.
“The level of competition in LMP1 is being taken to ever greater heights by the Manufacturer entrants, so to improve our own competitiveness in the category, we feel the need to invest more time and resources into updating the Rebellion R-One cars ready for the 2017 season,” Rebellion team manager Bart Hayden said.
“As a small private team with limited resources, we have decided to focus on racing one car rather than two in the remaining FIA WEC events and this will allow us to put more effort into updating the cars for 2017.
“Earlier this year at Le Mans, the FIA and the ACO announced some changes to the regulations for privateer LMP1 cars for 2017 and we need to take those changes and make them into reality to put us in a more competitive position going forward.
“Splitting our focus between running one car in the remaining races and on updating the cars for next year will mean that we can continue to be a part of the World Endurance Championship whilst at the same time making sure that we are as competitive as possible next year.
“We have decided to continue racing with the Rebellion R-One number 13 as that car is closer in the LMP1 Privateer Teams championship points standings to our rivals at ByKolles and it makes the fight for the championship a bigger challenge.”
The next FIA WEC round takes place in Mexico City on September 4.