The privateer team, will start the WEC season opener at Silverstone this weekend with the Lola B12/60-Toyota, follows a series of delays with the new R-One.
It is planned that the R-One will make its debut at the second round of the WEC at Spa in three weeks time after further testing at Ricard at the end of next week.
French manufacturer ORECA will design and developing on the new Rebellion R-One. And will use the same version of the Super GT-based 3.4-litre V8 the team currently uses for the Lola B12/60-Toyota which produces over 500 bhp.
ORECA boss Hugues de Chaunac described the test of the car, his company's first completed ground-up LMP design, as a "proud moment".
Meanwhile, Kodewa-based Lotus squad's new T129 LMP1-L World Endurance Championship challenger will miss the opening round of the series at Silverstone.
The team is moving up from LMP2 for this season, has been forced to scratch its solo entry from the British round after delays completing the AER-engined in their T129 LMP1 race car and is now planning to give the car its debut at round two at Spa in three weeks time. The reason the T129 will not race because they were "let down by our original engine supplier."
The original plan was to use a Neil Brown Engineering planned to developed out of the four-litre V8 Audi DTM engine, but could not deliver the engine on time. Instead they will use a new 2 litre twin-turbo V6 produced by AER (Advanced Engine Research) that forced a substantial redesign of the rear end of the car, including the monocoque.
When the car will be available in Spa, the new Lotus T129 will be driven by former F1 driver Christijan Albers, Pierre Kaffer and Christophe Bouchut. And then, Christijan Albers, Thomas Holzer and James Rossiter for the rest of the World Endurance Championship season.
End of blog for now. New post soon. Bye.
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