2015 World Endurance Championship grid extends beyond 32-car limit

The WEC, which attracted an initial entry of 31 cars last year, had planned to limit its grid to 32 full-season cars, but Gerard Neveu said that the quality of entries received made it impossible to stick to that limit.

"How could we refuse a Chevrolet Corvette [a C7.R entered by Larbre Competition] or such a quality of cars in LMP2," the WEC boss told AUTOSPORT.

"When you have a problem like this, you have to find a solution."

Neveu explained that the logistical operation required to transport the WEC field around the world for the four end-of-season flyaways would likely have to expand to a fifth cargo plane.

He also revealed that he was working with GTE teams running multiple cars to run two of their entries out of one pit garage at the two circuits, the Nurburgring and Shanghai, where there were fewer than 35 pit boxes.

The LMP2 field has expanded in size from the four cars that raced throughout 2014 after the failure of the Strakka Dome and the Millennium/Delta squad to make it to any of the races.

The class has grown with the addition of Extreme Speed Motorsports and Team SARD-Morand, which had already announced their plans, and the return of Strakka Racing.

OAK Racing has expanded its assault to three cars: it will run two Nissan-engined Ligier JSP2s under the G-Drive Racing banner and one under its own name with team boss Jacques Nicolet driving.

Nicolet, 58, said he was motivated to make a return to the cockpit because he "really wanted to drive the Ligier".

The Signatech Alpine squad is making the step up from the European Le Mans Series, which it has won the past two years, with its existing open-top ORECA-Nisssan 03R.

Team boss Philippe Sinault said: "It was a logical progression for us, but also a move Alpine wanted to take because from 2018 it will be selling its new sportscar [due to go on sale in Europe next year] in other markets around the world, such as the USA and China."

The LMP1 field has been bolstered by the arrival of Nissan with two full-season entries, while Aston Martin Racing has increased its roster of cars in GTE Pro to three with the graduation of the all-Danish car from GTE Am.

GTE Am is thus down two from the nine cars that started last season, after the Ram Racing Ferrari team withdrew following last year's Le Mans 24 Hours.

Larbre Competition, a class frontrunner in the first two years of the WEC, returns with a Corvette C7.R after being prevented from running the car last year.

It wanted to replace its C6.Rs with the latest-generation Corvette, entered in last year's Le Mans enduro by the factory team (pictured above), but was prevented from doing so because the car had not raced under Le Mans rules before a technology freeze was introduced at the end of 2013.

LMP1
1 Toyota Racing - Toyota TS040 HYBRID (Anthony Davidson)
2 Toyota Racing - Toyota TS040 HYBRID (Alexander Wurz)
4 Team ByKolles - CLMP1/01-AER (Simon Trummer)
7 Audi Sport Team Joest - Audi R18 E-tron Quattro (Marcel Fassler)
8 Audi Sport Team Joest - Audi R18 E-tron Quattro (Lucas di Grassi)
12 Rebellion Racing - Rebellion R-One-AER (Nicolas Prost)
13 Rebellion Racing - Rebellion R-One-AER (Mathias Beche)
17 Porsche Team - Porsche 919 Hybrid (Timo Bernhard)
18 Porsche Team - Porsche 919 Hybrid (Romain Dumas)
22 Nissan Motorsports - Nissan GT-R LM NISMO (Harry Tincknell)
23 Nissan Motorsports - Nissan GT-R LM NISMO (Olivier Pla)

LMP2
26 G-Drive Racing - Ligier JSP2-Nissan (Roman Rusinov)
28 G-Drive Racing - Ligier JSP2-Nissan (Gustavo Yacaman)
30 Extreme Speed Motorsports - HPD ARX-04b-Honda (Scott Sharp)
31 Extreme Speed Motorsports - HPD ARX-04b-Honda (Ed Brown)
35 OAK Racing - Ligier JSP2-Nissan (Jacques Nicolet)
36 Signatech Alpine - Alpine A4508-Nissan (Nelson Panciatici)
39 Team SARD Morand - Morgan Evo-SARD (Christian Klien)
42 Strakka Racing - Strakka Dome S103-Nissan (Nick Leventis)
43 Team SARD Morand - Morgan Evo-SARD (Pierre Ragues)
47 KCMG - ORECA 05-Nissan (Matt Howson)

LMGTE Pro
51 AF Corse - Ferrari 458 Italia (Gianmaria Bruni)
71 AF Corse - Ferrari 458 Italia (Davide Rigon)
91 Porsche Team Manthey - Porsche 911 RSR (Richard Lietz)
92 Porsche Team Manthey - Porsche 911 RSR (Patrick Pilet)
95 Aston Martin Racing - Aston Martin Vantage V8 (Marco Sorensen)
97 Aston Martin Racing - Aston Martin Vantage V8 (Darren Turner)
99 Aston Martin Racing - Aston Martin Vantage V8 (Fernando Rees)

LMGTE Am
50 Larbre Competition - Corvette C7R (Gianluca Roda)
72 SMP Racing - Ferrari 458 Italia (Victor Shaitar)
77 Dempsey-Proton Racing - Porsche 911 RSR (Patrick Dempsey)
83 AF Corse - Ferrari 458 Italia (Francois Perrodo)
88 Abu Dhabi Proton Racing - Porsche 911 RSR (Christian Ried)
96 Aston Martin Racing - Aston Martin Vantage V8 (Roald Goethe)
98 Aston Martin Racing - Aston Martin Vantage V8 (Paul Dalla Lana)

* Designated drivers are listed for entry list purposes only and could change