Despite attempts at dialogue and new calendar organisations, it seems that it has not been possible to avoid the concomitance of the FIA World Endurance Championship and Formula E on the weekend of 9-12 May.
As we had already anticipated in Decemberthat same weekend the 6h of Spa-Francorchamps of the World Endurance Championship will be held, while in Berlin there is a double date of the German ePrix.
The Belgian race, as per tradition, is scheduled for Saturday, so it would mean skipping just one day of the Berlin ePrix, scheduled as a double round on Saturday and Sunday for the seven drivers who have a double commitment.
The proposal to race only on Sundays in Germany had already arrived a few months ago from those directly involved (Buemi in particular), moving from Belgium to the German capital in the evening once the WEC race had concluded, but despite the meetings held between the organizers and the FIA , there has not been a shift in dates, so choices will now have to be made in this regard.
Lamborghini Squadra Corse will leave Edoardo Mortara free to go to Germany to join the Mahindra, replacing him with one of Matteo Cairoli or Andrea Caldarelli taking them from the crew of the SC63 registered in IMSA (not Romain Grosjean, already busy with IndyCar that weekend) to alongside Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat.
#63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63: Mirko Bortolotti, Edoardo Mortara, Daniil Kvyat
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
A different position is that of the Toyota Gazoo Racing drivers, with Nyck De Vries and Sébastien Buemi forced to give up the first day of 'electric' commitments with Mahindra Racing and Envision Racing, respectively, having priority driving the GR010 Hybrid Hypercar #7 and # 8.
During the first day of the race, Envision Racing will also have to do without Robin Frijns, owner first of all on the BMW M Hybrid V8 of Team WRT.
However, the scenario that Jota and Peugeot will face is different, as it seems they could follow in the footsteps of Cadillac, this year with only two permanent competitors at the wheel for the 6h races.
The English team will let Norman Nato leave to defend the colors of Andretti Autorsport in Berlin, entrusting the Porsche 963 #12 to Will Stevens and Callum Ilott alone, with whom he has just reached the podium at the 1812 Km of Qatar, taking the victory among the private Hypercar teams.
Nico Müller will remain at the Casa del Leone, missing the first race in Berlin with the ABT Cupra, while Jean-Éric Vergne (9X8 #93) and Stoffel Vandoorne (9X8 #94) will necessarily have to be on their DS-Penske in the electric series .
In Peugeot Sport at the moment they have not yet decided whether to give the reserve Malthe Jakobsen a chance by filling one of the two empty seats, but it is also not excluded that they proceed with two pairs, namely Mikkel Jensen/Muller (#93) Loic Duval/ Paul Di Resta (#94).
Malthe Jakobsen, Peugeot 9X8 LMH
Photo by: Peugeot Sport
“It was very easy for us to decide, Stoffel and Jean-Eric will necessarily have to skip Spa because DS would find itself without drivers and would not be able to race”, explained the Vice President of Stellantis Motorsport, Jean-Marc Finot, speaking to journalists present in Lusail, including Motorsport.com.
“Nico, on the other hand, will race with us because it is decided by the contract. At the moment we haven't decided on Malthe yet, but there is time to do so. However, the possibility remains of racing with three drivers on one car and two on the other. Or two and two.”
“In any case, we will not be looking for drivers outside the Peugeot family because we are a family and it would not be useful to take one just for one race.”
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