Le Mans 24 Hours winner Earl Bamber has secured the final vacant seat in next year’s Porsche LMP1 line-up, Motorsport.com has learned.
The New Zealander joins Nick Tandy and Andre Lotterer in a six-driver roster that will also include Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Neel Jani, the only one of this year’s FIA WEC title-winning trio that will be retained.
Porsche announced on Friday that Jani’s 2016 teammates Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas will not be retained, creating two more vacancies to add to the one opened up by Mark Webber’s retirement.
It had been rumoured that Audi DTM driver Mike Rockenfeller was in line for one of these seats, but sources have confirmed this is not the case.
Porsche will confirm Bamber, along with Tandy and Audi convert Lotterer, as LMP1 drivers this Saturday in its annual Night of Champions event.
Vanthoor set for GT seat
The German manufacturer will also confirm the line-up for next year’s Manthey-run works effort that will run in WEC’s GTE-Pro division with a pair of all-new mid-engined 911 RSRs.
Laurens Vanthoor has been strongly tipped to make the move across from sister marque Audi, but the identity of his teammates is less clear – particularly as Porsche now has gaps to plug in its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship line-up with Tandy and Bamber’s promotions.
Kevin Estre, Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen are among the candidates for the Manthey seats, while BMW’s Dirk Werner has been linked with a Porsche IMSA drive.
