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Alex Wurz retains Le Mans reserve role with Toyota after retiring

Retired two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Alex Wurz will act as an unofficial reserve driver for Toyota at this year's French enduro

Toyota has revealed that the 42-year-old, who has moved into an advisory role with the Japanese manufacturer for 2016, would be brought into play if one of its six drivers is sidelined ahead of the 24 Hours on June 18/19.

Wurz has already tested Toyota's new TS050 HYBRID over the course of its initial development this year.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon told Autosport: "If something happens to one of our drivers, we would bring in Alex.

"He has been testing quite a bit already because we want to use his experience and it helps us with the driver rotation when we are endurance testing."

Vasselon stressed that it was not an official position and that a reserve can only be used in case of force majeure with the permission of the stewards.

Last year, Toyota was given permission to run then-test and reserve driver Kamui Kobayashi, who has now replaced Wurz in the race line-up, at the Le Mans test day.

He was given the run because the test was Kazuki Nakajima's first time back in the car after sustaining back injuries in practice for the Spa World Endurance Championship round in May and it was not clear if he would be able to take part in the race.

Wurz, who will be attending all the WEC races this year in his new role, stressed that he remained a retired racing driver, despite taking part in the Daytona 24 Hours in January with Ganassi in the wake of the announcement that he would be stopping driving.

Audi has named Rene Rast as its reserve. Part of the crew of the third R18 e-tron quattro last year, Rast will be racing for the Jota-run G-Drive LMP2 squad in the LMP2 class of the WEC in 2016.

Porsche has yet to reveal a reserve, but 2015 Le Mans winners Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber both drove an updated 919 Hybrid at Aragon late last year and will both be present for the race as members of its GTE Pro line-up.

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