Former F1 driver Will Stevens has switched to the FIA World Endurance Championship, following John Booth and Graeme Lowdon to the Manor LMP2 team.
Stevens raced in Formula 1 last year but lost out on a Manor Racing seat for the 2016 season, with Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto picking up the two drives.
The British racer will now move into endurance racing with the new Manor WEC team, run by his former F1 bosses Booth and Lowdon.
"The opportunity to continue my relationship with Graeme and John was one that I was very pleased to accept," he said. "It gives me a great chance to explore endurance racing, be competitive and go racing with people I enjoyed working with last year so I’m looking forward to it.
"My objective is to have a number of top level career choices going forward, and to be able to gain experience in endurance racing will hopefully open up my career prospects.
"I want to keep very busy, enjoy my racing and do some winning and I’m confident that by working again with Manor in WEC I’ll achieve all of those things."
Manor had originally announced that it would run one Oreca 05 LMP2 machine in the FIA WEC in 2016, but the team has now upped its entry to two cars. Tor Graves and Stevens are the only confirmed drivers so far.
"Everything has moved very quickly since we first announced that we would be entering the 2016 World Endurance Championship," said Booth.
"It is great news to be running an additional Oreca 05 LMP2, we can’t wait to get started with the season at The Prologue at the end of March.
"It’s great that Will is joining the team, we know his talent and speed from working with him over the last few years in Formula 1 and we are all really looking forward to going racing with him."
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