Two-time Le Mans winner Earl Bamber will race for Cadillac in subsequent yr’s IMSA SportsCar Championship in what appears set to be a twin programme straddling the World Endurance Championship.
Bamber, winner on the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2015 and 2017 with Porsche, was launched as a full-season driver for the solo Movement Categorical Racing Cadillac V-Assortment.R LMDh when the Widespread Motors mannequin took the wraps off its full line-up for its three IMSA GTP class entries on Wednesday.
Cadillac will not be revealing its roster for the two Jota WEC entries until after subsequent month’s assortment finale in Bahrain, nevertheless it is anticipated that Bamber will switch over to the British employees from the Ganassi squad with which he has raced inside the assortment for the earlier two seasons.
The New Zealander, who joined Cadillac for an IMSA programme with Ganassi in 2021 after his departure from Porsche, has made no secret of his need to race in IMSA’s GTP class alongside his WEC commitments with the mannequin.
No affirmation of Bamber’s twin programme was forthcoming from Cadillac ahead of its WEC announcement, which is understood to be due in mid-November.
Nonetheless Bamber alluded to a joint programme in his statements inside the IMSA announcement from Cadillac.
#02 Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-LMDh: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook
{Photograph} by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Footage
“Hopefully I can convey experience from the WEC and IMSA, and I consider it will moreover convey a bit little little bit of continuity,” he said.
“We now have now that on the engineering side and hopefully on the driving force side that shared knowledge from every platforms brings us forward.”
What’s simply not clear is what programme will take precedence for Bamber when the two assortment have a conflicting date in May with the Spa WEC spherical and the Laguna Seca IMSA event taking place on the similar weekend.
The similar would apply to Le Mans should Movement Categorical return to the double-points spherical of the WEC, which it has contested as an additional Caddy entry for the earlier two editions.
Bamber is altering four-time Sebring 12 Hours winner Pipo Derani at Movement Categorical, winner of the IMSA GTP title in 2024, after the Brazilian launched his decision to depart Cadillac once more in June.
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Briton Jack Aitken will keep as a full-season Movement Categorical driver for a second season, whereas 2023 Technique 2 runner-up Frederik Vesti is out there in as a result of the employees’s additional driver for chosen long-distance races in Michelin Endurance Cup section of the IMSA assortment.
The 22-year-old Dane, who’s a Mercedes Technique 1 reserve driver this yr, is getting his maiden probability with a producer in sportscar racing after taking his first steps inside the self-discipline this yr in LMP2 inside the European Le Mans Assortment.
His season with the Swiss Cool Racing squad included two podiums at Paul Ricard and Portimao in May and October respectively aboard one in every of many employees’s ORECA-Gibson 07s.
Bamber, who this yr contested three IMSA enduros with Corvette Racing in GT Daytona Skilled, described the likelihood to return to IMSA with Movement Categorical as “an thrilling various”.
“I’ve truly missed IMSA, driving in America,” he added.
Movement Categorical employees boss Gary Nelson said: “We’re all very excited to have such an amazing group of gifted drivers lined up for the 2025 season.
“Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber convey a terrific combination and bringing in a youthful, gifted Frederik Vesti for endurance races gives to what we’re attempting to carry out.”
