F3 driver Lucas Auer to make LMP1 debut at Austin WEC with Lotus
European Formula 3 Championship race winner Lucas Auer will make his LMP1 debut with the German Lotus team in next month's World Endurance Championship event at Austin
The Austrian will drive the new Lotus-AER P1/01 on its race debut together with Lotus regulars Christophe Bouchut and James Rossiter after making his first sportscar start in the team's T129 LMP2 machine at the last year's Bahrain WEC finale.
Lotus team boss Boris Bermes said: "Lucas has quite a long relationship with us, and is a quick driver and a good guy.
"He's a young driver who isn't only talking of Formula 1, and he has said that he definitely wants to do the Le Mans 24 Hours in the future."
Auer, who lies fourth in the European F3 points, said: "F3 doesn't continue until mid-October with the last two meetings at Imola and Hockenheim, so I jumped at the chance to race the Lotus LMP1 at Austin."
Further outings this year for Auer, who will not get a chance to try the car before free practice at Austin, have not been ruled out by Lotus.
Bermes said: "The plan is not fixed yet, but he could do more races, which would give him a chance to learn some more F1 tracks."
The line-up in the solo Lotus has yet to be finalised for the final four WEC races after Austin.
Pierre Kaffer, who is unavailable in the USA because he is driving Risi Competizione's Ferrari in the United SportsCar Championship event over the Austin weekend, will do all the remaining events.
Rossiter will have to miss the Bahrain race courtesy of a clash with the Super GT finale in Japan.
Bouchut and Thomas Holzer, who was part of the summer test programme with the Lotus, will be part of a rotation of drivers over the rest of the year.
The P1/01 undertook its second circuit test at the Lausitz two weeks ago with Kaffer and Bouchut driving, Bermes saying the team had "made good progress at the last test".
"We introduced some new parts, including aerodynamic pieces, and we have more coming for COTA," he explained.
Porsche completes Lausitzring test with LMP1 WEC contender
Audi WEC driver Loic Duval suffered no after-effects from Le Mans crash
Why Le Mans didn't decide Toyota's WEC title outcome in 2021
Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez scored a second successive World Endurance Championship title in the #7 Toyota, as its new Le Mans Hypercar went unbeaten. Autosport recaps how each of the four classes in the 2021 season were won and picks out the best LMH and GTE drivers
The unanswered questions that define WEC 2021's controversial ending
OPINION: The deeply unsatisfying ending to a brilliant World Endurance Championship GTE Pro battle in Bahrain had Ferrari provisionally heading back from the desert as the victor. But Porsche plans to appeal the outcome, which rests on a number of confusing elements that have yet to be satisfactorily explained
How the WEC's heavyweight duel reached its controversial flashpoint
The Ferrari versus Porsche fight for the World Endurance Championship's GTE Pro title had been a finely-poised affair, right up until Alessandro Pier Guidi's punt on Michael Christensen in the closing stages of the Bahrain 8 Hours handed Ferrari a provisional title, pending Porsche's appeal. Here's how the controversy played out
The remarkable fixes Toyota used to avert another Le Mans disaster
The 1-2 finish achieved by Toyota at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours was a result that will have surprised few, given its status as pre-event favourite. But the result was anything but straightforward, as worsening fuel pressure concerns required the team's drivers and engineers to pursue "creative fixes" on the fly. Here is the full story of how it reached the end without a lengthy pit visit
How the #7 Toyota squad moved closer to clinching WEC's 2021 title
In the penultimate round of the 2021 World Endurance Championship, a better run of tyre wear for Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi brought the Toyota trio its third win from five events, as the #7 squad put one hand on the title. Here's how the first of the WEC's two Bahrain enduros played out
The 10 greatest drives of lost legend Jo Siffert
It's 50 years since Jo Siffert was killed in his prime at Brands Hatch. The Swiss scored just two world championship wins in a Formula 1 career spent largely with privateer teams, but showed on numerous occasions in single-seaters and in sportscars with Porsche that he could beat any of the best drivers of his era given the right equipment
Inside the Le Mans finish too barmy for Hollywood
Team WRT has been at the forefront of GT racing for years and made a successful move to prototypes for 2021, capped by an LMP2 win on its Le Mans debut. It could've been even better had the race been one lap shorter, when its cars ran 1-2, but the stranger-than-fiction reality has spurred the team to reach greater heights
The standout memories of Le Mans 2021
OPINION: With four of the five Hypercar entries unproven in a 24-hour race, it would not have been unexpected for at least one of them to suffer serious reliability trouble. That they all managed to make it through the race relatively unscathed, says GARY WATKINS, was something of a surprise.