Rob Bell is returning to Aston Martin Racing after a year away for an attack on the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.
The Briton, who is contracted to McLaren for its GT3 programmes, will race the lead Aston Martin Vantage GTE together with Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke in the GTE Pro class at Le Mans and the Spa World Endurance Championship round in May.
Bell, who led the class at Le Mans in 2013 for Aston Martin together with Frederic Makowiecki and Bruno Senna, told AUTOSPORT: “I’m pretty happy to be back with Aston, and McLaren has been great about letting me do it with them again.
“I’ll be doing Spa to get up to speed; there’s a bit of pressure on being with Darren and Stefan.”
AMR boss John Gaw explained that Bell had “done a great job in 2013”.
“Rob gets on well with Darren and Stefan; the chemistry within the team is very important,” he said.
Bell is rejoining Aston after McLaren vetoed him staying with the team in 2014, which resulted in a move to the factory Dodge Viper squad.
He raced in three of the four North American Endurance Cup rounds of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship and was scheduled to do Le Mans prior to the Riley-run squad’s withdrawal.
Richie Stanaway is scheduled to contest all the full WEC for the first time in AMR’s second car alongside Fernando Rees and Alex MacDowall.
Should Stanaway, who joined AMR in 2013, land a GP2 drive after starring in last week’s official GP2 test in Abu Dhabi with the Status team, there would be only one clash with the WEC.
MacDowall, who joined AMR last year as part of a tie-up with the Bamboo squad, has stayed on board for a second year in the WEC.
He said it was “undeniably the best place for me to be”.
Ferrari GT3 regular Francesco Castellacci joins Roald Goethe in AMR’s #96 GTE Am entry together with Stuart Hall, the German’s long-time driving partner.
Stanaway will also be part of AMR’s Nurburgring 24 Hours campaign with a pair of V12 Vantage GT3s along with fellow newcomer Jonny Adam.
FULL AMR WEC LINE-UP
#5 Marco Sørensen/Christoffer Nygaard/Nicki Thiim
#96 Francesco Castellacci/Roald Goethe/Stuart Hall
#97 Darren Turner/Stefan Mücke,/Rob Bell ( Spa & Le Mans only)
#98 Paul Dalla Lana/Pedro Lamy/Mathias Lauda
#99 Alex MacDowall/Fernando Rees/Richie Stanaway
