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WEC LMP1 champs Buemi and Jani join Rebellion for Daytona 24 Hours

Factory LMP1 World Endurance Championship drivers Sebastien Buemi and Neel Jani will join Rebellion Racing for an attack on January's Daytona 24 Hours

Buemi and Jani, WEC champions with Toyota and Porsche in 2014 and '16 respectively, will drive the LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07 that Rebellion will field in the four long-distance races that make up the North American Endurance Cup segment of the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

They will share the car at Daytona on January 28-29 with the Anglo-Swiss team's regular Nick Heidfeld.

The IMSA NAEC campaign - which also includes the Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta enduros - is the first part of Rebellion's 2017 programme to be confirmed after its decision to switch from the WEC privateer LMP1 ranks.

It marks a return to a North America series by Rebellion for the first time since the 2013 season in which it notched up the second of its back-to-back victories in the Petit Le Mans blue-riband race at Road Atlanta.

Jani, who also won the Le Mans 24 Hours this year, is returning to the team with which he made his name in sportscar racing in 2009-13 prior to his move to Porsche at the start of its P1 programme.

Team principal Bart Hayden said: "After our success in the American Le Mans Series races in 2012 and 2013 [of which Petit was then a part], we always wanted to find a way back to competing in the USA.

"Reuniting Nick with Neel and adding Seb gives us a top-line driver line-up and signals our intention which is to compete at the highest level and hopefully to win again in the USA."

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