Rebellion racing have announced that they will no longer be competing in the World Endurance Championship after the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This means the LMP1 team will not be taking part in the WEC final round which will take place in Bahrain.
As Rebellion Racing CEO, Calim Bouhadra in a statement said that the team’s involvement in the 8 hours of Bahrain race still depended on the team having a chance to beat Toyota Gazoo in the WEC title.
The Rebellion team has taken the second place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans after topping FP3 as Gustavo Menezes, Norman Nato and Bruno Senna being 30 points behind the No.8 Toyota. A 39 point offer still remains in the 2019/2020 WEC finale including a point for the pole position. The Rebellion R-13’s have been the only non-hybrid LMP1 cars on the track and their only chance to beat the dominant Toyotas relies on the possibility they do not finish the race.
Bouhadra confirmed the decision made by the team on Tuesday, that the Swiss racing team will not be racing in Bahrain, in addition to termination of their involvement in WEC.
This means that only 2 cars owned by Toyota Gazoo Racing will be taking part in the final race that will conclude the LMP1 era of cars. Bykolles Racing with their ENSO CLM P1/01 only competed at Spa in August and 24 Hours of Le Mans as Ginetta also ruled out racing in Bahrain. This withdrawal of the LMP1 teams will give the two Toyota TS050 Hybrid A rather simple race as no car will finish below 2nd.
Victory at Le Mans for Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima in the No.8 Toyota maintained them to the top of the WEC standings on 175 points.
Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez driving the No.7 Toyota were leading prior to last weekend, winning three of the preceding six WEC races, but are now behind by seven points following their troubled run to third place at La Sarthe.
With the 38 points offer on the victory and 27 for the 2nd at the Bahrain finale, means that whichever car finishes first will have won the title even without any consideration of the car that will win the pole
