Photo : CHRISTOPHE JOUNIAUX / VSA

 

The Rebellion Racing outfit has come to a decision it should have made at the end of the season by going from a naturally aspirated Toyota engine to a V6 twin-turbo AER (Advanced Engineering Research) engine. Oreca, which produces the R-One chassis, is currently working on the new engine's integration, but with no time to spare, the Swiss team will not roll its cars at the Prologue, the official tests of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), nor in the first race of the season at Silverstone in the U.K.

The two No. 12 and No. 13 R-Ones, if the entry request for the FIA WEC is approved, will debut on May 2nd at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, second round of the championship and traditionally considered a rehearsal before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, happening this year on June 13th and 14th. Last year, the outfit managed by Bart Hayden crossed the finish line in fourth place overall in La Sarthe thanks to Mathias Beche, Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost.

Bart Hayden, Rebellion Racing Team Manager: "We are delighted to announce our new association with Advanced Engine Research for the 2015 FIA WEC season and beyond, this partnership is exciting news for REBELLION Racing. We are pleased to welcome them as our new engine partner and look forward to building a productive and successful working relationship. The AER P60 engine has shown good performance on track already and we believe that this engine will marry well to the Rebellion R-One chassis. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank TOYOTA and TMG who have been so closely associated with our team and their continued hard work since we started our engine partnership at the end of the 2010 season. We have enjoyed a strong relationship that has resulted in many class successes and overall victories over the past four years. We are faced with a significant amount of work to upgrade the R-One cars to accommodate the P60 engine and we are fully determined to do it in the best way possible, that is why we will not be ready in time to debut the new cars at the season opening race at Silverstone."

Cécile Bonardel / ACO (quotation from team press release) - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO

PHOTO: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, WEDNESDAY JUNE 11 2014, QUALIFYING. Rebellion Racing's two cars will debut in Belgium with their new engines.