Many of today’s endurance drivers have single-seater experience. With few spots available for drivers without financial backing in the discipline that all youngsters dream about – Formula One – more up-and-coming drivers are switching to sports cars than ever before.

Drivers historically made a career with varying degrees of success in Formula One, such as Porsche’s Mark Webber or Toyota’s Alexander Wurz, before crossing over to endurance. With the increasing interest in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the enthusiasm generated by LM P1 prototypes since the new regulations were implemented by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, promising young drivers leaving the single-seater feeder series – the GP2 and GP3 Series, Formula Renault and Formula Three – are now heading straight to endurance. Before gatecrashing the LM P1 party however, they are given a chance to hone their skills in the LM P2 class, as Harry Ticknell did with Jota Sport in 2014 before being signed up by Nissan for their  LM P1 programme this year.

A partnership has therefore been agreed with this perspective in mind between Jota Sport, LM P2 class winners at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014 and runners-up this year, and Arden International Motorsport, who have collected innumerable titles in the old Formula 3000 or in the GP3 Series. The tie-up will help young talent such as Arden driver Mitch Evans, and Oliver Turvey, who both put in a more-than-solid performance at Le Mans this year, to gain experience in endurance without leaving their single-seaters altogether to begin with.

This partnership will also contribute to the development of the Jota Sport outfit who announced earlier this month that they would also be competing in the 2016 WEC with an Oreca 05–Nissan while continuing to run a full European Le Mans Series season with their Gibson. It will also give Simon Dolan, team owner and driver, an opportunity to tap into the talent pool of the open-wheel racing team founded by Christian Horner, now Red Bull F1 Team Manager, and his father Garry.

The number of Le Mans 24-Hour drivers trained by Arden International Motorsport, based in Banbury alongside Prodrive and Aston Martin Racing, and now in endurance forms an impressive list: from Marc Goossens, Townsend Bell, Bruno Senna and Michael Christensen in GT to Nicolas Lapierre, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Simon Trummer and Sébastien Buemi, current World Endurance Champion, in prototypes. Proof that the transition from single-seaters to endurance can be successful.

Cécile Bonardel / ACO
Translated from French by David Goward

PHOTO: Julian Rouse, Arden team manager, David Clark, Jota Sport co-owner, Garry Horner, Arden founder, and Sam Hignett, Jota Sport co-owner.