Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

The FIA ​​World Endurance Championship has published a provisional list of entrants for the 2025 season with 36 cars.

Published on Friday, four days after registrations closed for the new season, the list presents an equal split between Hypercar and LMGT3 entries, a reduction of one compared to last year for the full season, but retaining the same number of cars seen in the final. three rounds of 2024 following Isotta Fraschini’s mid-season withdrawal.

This is despite the fact that the WEC has already established a objective for the peloton to reach up to 40 carsincluding the potential for a 22-car Hypercar field.

The entry list confirms Lamborghini’s withdrawal, with the remaining eight manufacturers, including newcomer Aston Martin, fielding two factory cars each.

These will be joined by just two non-factory entries, the third-string #83 Ferrari 499P AF Corse and a single Porsche 963 from Proton Competition, which had aimed to expand to a second customer entry but is will ultimately stick to just one car. .

Toyota, Ferrari and Porsche have their full crews named on the entry list, in line with each manufacturer’s respective previous announcements, while the full AF Corse trio, including the Robert Kubica recently confirmedis also present.

For Porsche, only the two main drivers of each of its factory cars, Julien Andlauer/Michael Christensen in the No. 5 and Laurens Vanthoor/Kevin Estre in the No. 6, are named, but Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet have been confirmed as additional drivers for certain races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Other Hypercar manufacturers have only one driver named for each car, although Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA and Peugeot’s full driver rosters for the upcoming season – albeit the exact crews – are already known.

Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber are listed separately as respective primary drivers for the No. 12 and No. 38 Cadillacs, with Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne filling the same role for the No. 93 and No. 94 Peugeot cars.

Harry Tincknell and Alex Riberas are named for both Aston Martin entries in line with the announcement made Thursday by the British manufacturer.

Elsewhere, BMW named Dries Vanthoor and René Rast as first drivers for the No. 15 and No. 20 entries respectively, while Alpine named Paul-Loup Chatin for the No. 35 car and Charles Milesi for the No. 36 sister .

Neel Jani is the only driver named for the No. 99 Porsche Proton.

Racing Spirit of Leman replaces D’station Racing in LMGT3

The LMGT3 portion of the entry list includes two cars from each of the nine participating manufacturers, also reflecting Iron Lynx moves from Lamborghini to Mercedes-AMG machines as announced on Wednesday.

This also confirms the withdrawal of D’station Racingwith the Japanese team being replaced as one of Aston Martin’s two partner teams alongside Heart of Racing Team by European Le Mans Series Racing team Spirit of Leman.

American Derek DeBoer, who drove for the Swiss-flagged team in this year’s European Le Mans Series, is the only driver named for what is now the No. 10 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Only AF Corse has full driver line-ups named for both cars, with the Ferrari team retaining a completely unchanged line-up on its pair of Ferrari 296 GT3s, although Manthey has also confirmed the line-ups for its pair of Porsche 911 GT3 Rs.

The remaining teams all have a single driver per named crew, in all but one case (Ben Barnicoat in the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3) featuring an existing member of the 2024 season car.

Interestingly, BMW Team WRT’s second entry is now #32, not #46. Asked by Sportscar365 what this means for Valentino Rossi’s future in the series, a BMW spokesperson said the brand “will release its drivers later.” .’

The 2025 WEC season is set to begin with the season-opening 1,812km in Qatar on February 28, with the two-day Prologue test taking place just before on February 21-22.

Jamie Klein is the Asian publisher of Sportscar365. Japan-based Klein, who previously worked for Motorsport Network on Motorsport.com and Autosport titles, covers the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship and SUPER GT, among other series.