Jean-Eric Vergne believes the intricacies of driving in Formula One will play to his advantage at this weekend's Silverstone World Endurance Championship opener.
The 26-year-old Frenchman is set to make his prototype racing debut this weekend, having spent the past six seasons on the Formula One circuit.
Sharing the #24 CEFC Manor TRS Racing-entered ORECA 07-Gibson with Tor Graves and Jonathan Hirschi, Vergne is hoping to call on his previous single seater experience to rank highly amongst the competitive LMP2 field.
“Based on the first practice session, I think the race will be won both on pace and in the pits because there seems to be quite high tyre degradation,” Vergne told Motorsport Week.
“We will make the difference if all three of our drivers are able to make the tyres last longer than the other teams, and that’s where my experience can be very useful.”
“In Formula One I had to do a lot of tyre saving with the high-degradation Pirelli tyres, so I think those skills will prove to be very useful this weekend and in the rest of the WEC.”
“So far I’m very pleased with everything I have seen – ORECA has produced an amazing car but the problem is everybody has one so it is close!”
Vergne arrives in the WEC seeking to forge a new career in sportscars, following a long tenure carving his way through the single seater ladder.
Having reached the heights of Formula One with Toro Rosso from 2012 to 2014, he signed on as chief reserve driver for the main Ferrari team last year.
After one season with the Scuderia, Vergne left to pursue a new career thread, and managed to use his time in the F1 paddock to connect with Graham Lowdon and John Booth – architects of the former Manor F1 team – whose sportscar outfit is entering its sophomore year in WEC.
That opportunity to drive in prototypes means Vergne is now open to pursuing a new works-based programme in closed-cockpit racing – an opportunity his F1 roles have forced him to reject in the past.

“LMP1 would be really nice for me,” he said.
“I had an opportunity to drive with Porsche two years ago in LMP1, but I couldn’t because of my commitments with Ferrari.”
“But now I have the opportunity to gain some good experience in LMP2 and hopefully a good opportunity will come back up to race in the top class.”
Vergne hasn’t cut his single seater ties completely, having agreed a deal with the Techeetah Formula E team for the current season.
So far, he has claimed two podiums from four races, and sits a respectable fourth in the standings heading into the next round at Monaco.
Keeping one hand in the Formula E pie means Vergne is continuing to drive with machines that require cutting-edge technology, which he hopes can make him an ideal candidate for a seat on board an LMP1 hybrid in the future.
“I think my experience in Formula E will benefit me in trying to get an LMP1 drive – definitely,” he said.
“Formula E gave me a lot of experience in saving energy and making the power last. That will be useful in LMP2 because we are going to have to do a lot fuel saving this year, and also with the technology in LMP1.”
Adjusting to a new environment brings its own raft of challenges, but Vergne is confident that he can override these and become an accomplished prototype racer.
Although he missed the WEC pre-season test at Monza to race in the Buenos Aires ePrix, he has already accrued enough miles behind the wheel to feel comfortable with the dynamics of the Manor ORECA.
However, there were a couple of things that required some reconfiguration, such as driving a car with a roof and an extra pane of glass in front of the visor.
“It’s kind of weird to be honest,” he said.
“It’s much harder to see, and you can’t feel the wind or the speed in the same way you do in single seaters. But, I’ve got used to the sensations quite quickly, and I’m now fully used to it.”
“I think the level of driver competition is very high [in WEC LMP2], and the cars are really nice to drive. Plus, doing the WEC means doing Le Mans, which I put as one of the top three races in the world. There are lots of positives to driving in this championship.”
Vergne and his team-mates begin their nine-race WEC campaign this weekend at the 6 Hours of Silverstone.
The event is scheduled to get underway at 12:00 local time on Sunday, April 16th, with qualifying bookmarked for Saturday afternoon.