Toyota protege Hirakawa stays in ELMS, moves to DragonSpeed
Toyota protege Ryo Hirakawa will return to the European Le Mans Series in 2017 with Russian entrant G-Drive Racing
The 22-year-old member of Toyota's development programme will drive an ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2 fielded under the banner of the 2016 title-winning entrant by the US DragonSpeed squad.
Hirakawa is due to contest only four of the six ELMS races because his Super GT Series programme with the TOM'S Lexus squad will take precedence.
His team-mates at G-Drive will include three-time Daytona 24 Hours winner Memo Rojas, who was confirmed in the car when the ELMS entry list was published last week.
Hirakawa and Rojas move over from the TDS Racing and Greaves Motorsports teams for their respective ELMS campaigns.
A third, silver-rated, driver has yet to be named by G-Drive and DragonSpeed.
Hirakawa said: "I'm excited to be joining G-Drive and DragonSpeed and wish to thank both them and Toyota for this opportunity.
"I really enjoyed my first season of ELMS: it was great to win races and challenge for the title, and I hope to do the same in 2017."
Hirakawa made his Le Mans 24 Hours debut with TDS last season, but has not been confirmed with G-Drive for this year's race.
It is believed that he is in the frame for one of the vacant seats in Toyota's third TS050 HYBRID for the French enduro.
DragonSpeed is also running an ORECA under its own name in this year's ELMS with an unchanged line-up of Nicolas Lapierre, Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman.
Previous article
Ex-F1 driver Kobayashi to combine Super Formula and WEC in 2017
Next article
Project Cars 2 set for late-2017 release
How to Stay Out of Crashes
This Week with Will Buxton: Episode 1
Live - Goodwood FoS 2021: Saturday
Live - Goodwood FoS 2021: Friday
The one-time Schumacher rival rebooting his career Down Under
Joey Mawson made waves in the middle of the last decade, beating future Haas Formula 1 driver Mick Schumacher - among other highly-rated talents - to the 2016 German F4 title. A run in F1's feeder GP3 category only caused his career to stall, but now back in Australia Mawson's S5000 title success has set that to rights
The lesson football’s would-be wreckers could learn from racing
OPINION: The greed-driven push for a European Super League that threatened to tear football apart is collapsing at the seams. Motor racing's equivalent, the football-themed Superleague Formula series of 2008-11, was everything that the proposed ESL never could be
The F1 and Indy 'nearly man' that found contentment in Japan
Having had the door to F1 slammed in his face and come within three laps of winning the Indianapolis 500, the collapse of a Peugeot LMP1 shot meant Japan was Bertrand Baguette's last chance of a career. But it's one which he has grasped with both hands
The female all-rounder who arrived "too early"
From Formula 3 to truck racing, Dakar and EuroNASCAR via a winning stint in the DTM, there's not much Ellen Lohr hasn't seen in a stellar racing career that highlights the merit in being a generalist. But she believes her career came too early...
How Radical's latest machines fare on track
The lightweight sportscar manufacturer has not rewritten the rulebook with its latest machines, but the new SR3 XX and SR10 still provide a step forward on its previous successful models
The real-life racing rogues stranger than fiction
The forthcoming Netflix film linking the world of underworld crime and motorsport plays on a theme that isn't exactly new. Over the years, several shady figures have attempted to make it in racing before their dubious dealings caught up with them
How a GP is thriving in a COVID-free territory
The New Zealand Grand Prix's mix of rising talent and big-name stars thrilled the crowds (yes, remember crowds?) assembled for the Toyota Racing Series meeting at Hampton Downs last weekend and left distant observers craving a repeat
How a much-changed Macau GP kept the party going
OPINION: The 67th edition of the Macau Grand Prix might have been a largely muted affair to the outside world without its international influx and star line-ups, another victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, but organisers deserve huge credit for keeping the party going
