Rebellion Racing is hoping that the renewed LMP1 regulations mean that they will be able to compete with Toyota right from the start. The Swiss outfit is entering two cars for this weekend's 4 Hours of Silverstone, the season opener for the 2019/20 FIA World Endurance Championship.
The team, which won the Silverstone round of the 2018/19 Super Season, was initially only supposed to enter a single Rebellion R13-Gibson into the LMP1 category, but expanded to second car for the season opener last week. The #1 car, which is confirmed for the full season, will be driven by the trio of Bruno Senna, Gustavo Menezes and Norman Nato.
They will be joined by Loic Duval, Nathanaël Berthon and Pipo Derani in the #3. The #3 car has so far only been confirmed for Silverstone, but the team said in a statement: "By entering two REBELLION R-13 cars for this first round, the Team is demonstrating its desire to enter both cars on each 2019-2020 season rounds". This suggests that the #3 will be joining the grid for more rounds this season.
The team has made it clear that they have a clear goal for the season opener at Silverstone, and that is to compete with the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids that won the championship last season.
“Looking forward to kicking off a new FIA WEC season with the Rebells and in an ever developing LMP1 car," said Bruno Senna. "We'll push even harder than last season to get our car to its limits and hope to push Toyota from the start.
"We will work very hard to close the gap between us and Toyota," added Gustavo Menezes. "Hopefully be pushing them immediately. Going into the 2019-2020 season and looking to just keep building momentum and see what we can hand up.“
The team has arrived at Silverstone with a two-tone white and black livery on both cars. As team president Alexandre Pesci explained, this livery is provisional, with the final version to be unveiled at Fuji: "This weekend we will line up two very high level crews to fight for the win at Silverstone. We won this race last season and the whole Team is more than motivated to do it on more time."
"Both cars are provisional and the Team REBELLION Racing will be proud to present the final livery at the Fuji round next October."
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