The Brazilian-Italian, who has not competed for the reason that conclusion of his title-winning season within the 2022 Formulation 2 Championship, will contest the total six-round ELMS within the British crew’s LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07.
Drugovich will share the automotive with Stephane Richelmi and Ryan Cullen instead of Gabriel Aubry, who had been scheduled to proceed driving for the crew with which he raced in LMP2 within the World Endurance Championship in 2023.
“It’s good to know that I shall be again in motion in actual races, bringing collectively my expertise and my fondness for endurance racing,” stated 23-year-old Drugovich, who took half in two Friday free follow periods with Aston final yr in his first yr within the reserve position.
“My job as substitute and reserve driver with Aston Martin in F1 continues with its full schedule; I’ll simply be protecting busy on my weekends which up till now have been free.
“I’ve met the crew and was impressed with what I noticed: I’m positive that along with them and my fellow drivers we are able to write a profitable chapter with the #10 ORECA.”
Vector crew principal Gary Holland described himself as a “massive fan of Felipe’s”.
“The chance to have somebody like him within the automotive doesn’t occur fairly often, so we needed to seize it with each arms,” he informed Motorsport.com.
“This programme solely actually got here up within the final week or so, however we’d already been speaking for some time, extra about the long term.
“Felipe has been out of competitors for a yr, so he needs to remain sharp.
“It’s been a bit hectic getting it accomplished, however I’ve excessive hopes for what we predict is a really balanced line-up.”
#10 Vector Sport Oreca 07 – Gibson: Ryan Cullen, Matthias Kaiser, Gabriel Aubry
Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Photographs
Drugovich will get his first expertise of the Vector ORECA at Paul Ricard this week when he joins Richelmi and Cullen in a two-day take a look at on Tuesday and Wednesday.
4 of the six rounds of the ELMS, which kicks off at Barcelona on 14 April, conflict with F1 races.
However Stoffel Vandoorne, with whom Drugovich shares the reserve position at Aston, doesn’t have conflicts for these weekends along with his programmes driving for Peugeot within the WEC and DS Penske in Formulation E.
Drugovich’s take care of Vector doesn’t presently cowl the Le Mans 24 Hours WEC spherical in June for which Vector has an entry.
Holland prompt that Aubry might stay with the crew for the French enduro on 15/16 June.
“We’d wish to hold Gabby within the fold,” he defined.
“We’ve larger and higher programmes coming, so we’re going to have to extend our portfolio of drivers anyway.”
Groups would not have to appoint their full driver line-ups for Le Mans till early Could.
Vector was shaped forward of its maiden LMP2 assault on the 2022 WEC and has moved into the ELMS after the secondary prototype class was axed from the world championship for this season.
It had been attributable to graduate to the Hypercar class of the WEC in parallel with its entry into the ELMS in partnership with the Italian Isotta Fraschini model earlier than the breakdown of its deal.
Isotta finally entered WEC in affiliation with Duqueine Engineering.
