Image: Alpine Cars Press
The official list of entries for the 2021 World Endurance Championship (WEC) has been revealed, with the newly established Hypercar class taking the centre stage.
There will be four categories taking part with the LMP1 class ditched for this year in favour of Hypercars and LMP2.
Taking part in the Hypercar class are five entrants consisting of Toyota Gazoo Racing with two GR010s, Alpine Elf Mamut with a single A480 car. Glickenhaus Racing will also be entering two 007 LMH cars with their hope of gaining an overall victory with an American car at Le Mans. If so, it would be the first time since 1967.
The Hypercar class is looking even more promising in the future however, as Peugeot Sport will be making an appearance in 2022 as well as Audi and Porsche making a return afterwards.
The GR010. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing.
The LMP2 class consists of 11 entrants mainly consisting of ten Oreca 07s, with the singular exception being run by the Arc Bratislava team in a Ligier JSP217.
Four cars are being entered into the LMGTE Pro class, consisting of AF Corse with two Ferrari 488 GTE Evos and the Porsche GT Team entering two 911 RSRs.
There are more entrants in the LMGTE Am class including five 488 GTE Evos being run by AF Corse, Iron Lynx and Cetilar Racing, as well as five Porsche 911 RSRs - two of which are being entered by Dempsey-Proton Racing. But Aston Martin Racing saying they're focusing their efforts on customer racing and the newly-branded F1 team, they are entering a Vantage AMR in GTE Am as well as providing a car to private Japanese team, D'Station Racing.
More notably in the LMP2 class however, isn't the fact that it has seen the largest number of entries recorded in WEC, but that the Richard Mille Racing Team has an all-female drivers' line-up for the very first time. The drivers are Tatiana Calderon, Sophia Floersch and Beitske Visser.
The D'Station team's Vantage GTE. (Image: Aston Martin Lagonda Media)
The 2021 WEC calendar is as follows:
- Pre-season testing: Sebring, March 13-14.
- 1000 Miles of Sebring: March 19
- 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps: May 1
- 24 Hours of Le Mans: June 12-13
- 6 Hours of Monza: July 18
- 6 Hours of Fuji: September 26
- 6 Hours of Bahrain: November 20
The full list of entrants can be seen in detail in the WEC's official video below