JOTA Sport has further strengthened its relationship with Audi Sport by securing the services of Marc Gené for its two-race 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship programme. Gené, who celebrated his 40th birthday last Saturday (29th March), will join JOTA Sport’s regular European Le Mans Series drivers Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (BEL) and 24 Heures du Mans (F).
The ultra-experienced Spaniard, who remains Audi Sport’s “reserve” driver* at both of these races, has just tested the Kent-based team’s LMP2 Zytek Z11SN for the first time last week (1st and 2nd April). Gené joins fellow “factory” Audi Sport driver Filipe Albuquerque, Dolan and Tincknell at the ELMS Official Tests at Paul Ricard (F). Albuquerque, as announced earlier this month, combines his Audi Sport LMP programme of Spa and Le Mans by racing for JOTA Sport in the five-race ELMS.
Gené contested 36 Grands Prix for the Minardi and Williams Formula One teams (1999-2004) and remains actively involved at this level, attending every GP as a Scuderia Ferrari F1 Test Driver – a position he has held for almost 10 years with the Italian team.
Marc is not the first ex-F1 “pilot” or outright Le Mans race winner to represent JOTA Sport. Gené follows in the wheel tracks of Stefan Johansson, Jan Lammers, Alex Yoong, John Neilsen and Hideki Noda. Filipe, along with his ELMS team-mates Dolan and Tincknell, clocked up almost 700 trouble-free miles in the two-day test. JOTA Sport, in addition to the two WEC races this year, contest the five-race ELMS having finished third in the Teams’ Championship and joint third in the final Drivers’ standings (Dolan and Oliver Turvey) last year. The opening ELMS race will be at Silverstone (18th and 19th April 2014) – a three-hour race the Kent-based team won last year with the Zytek Z11SN.
BS low – raitanoltiy high! Really good answer!