Imagine taking the reigning 24 Hours of Le Mans and FIA World Endurance Championship champion from Porsche, the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship and reigning FIA Formula E champion from Toyota, a multiple-time Petit Le Mans winner from Rebellion Racing, then pair them with Toyota’s longest active driver in the FIA WEC, and put them all in one car.
And in that one car, you have a ridiculously stacked lineup that Rebellion Racing is putting together in its Oreca 07 for the 2017 Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Stephane Sarrazin has been confirmed today as the fourth driver alongside Neel Jani, Nick Heidfeld and Sebastien Buemi in a thoroughly impressive lineup for the Bart Hayden-run operation, which makes its return to the U.S. starting with next year’s Rolex 24 as part of a Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup lineup. Jani and Heidfeld have raced together with Rebellion in the past and Daytona marks its reunion.
“After our success in the American Le Mans Series races in 2012 and 2013, we always wanted to find a way back to competing in the USA,” Hayden said when the team announced its U.S. return. “We are very excited to be able to return with a new prototype and to race in the North American Endurance Cup in 2017. Reuniting Nick with Neel and adding Seb gives us a top line driver line-up and signals our intention which is to compete at the highest level and hopefully to win again in the USA.”
The Prototype class field at the Rolex 24 should be well north of 12 entries – perhaps 15 or more – and most of them will have pretty impressive lineups for the debut of the new Daytona Prototype international (DPi) format along with the new-for-2017-spec LMP2 cars.
