WEC: Rebellion opts against hybrid switch

Rebellion Racing has no plans to upgrade its LMP1 contender to a hybrid for next season's World Endurance Championship.

The Anglo-Swiss team, which introduced its ORECA-developed Rebellion-Toyota R-One at the Spa WEC round in May, had initially looked at running in one of the lower hybrid sub-classes for its debut season with the car and had reserved judgment on plans for 2015. Now it has decided against running an energy-retrieval system for year two of the program.

"We did look at moving into the two megajoule class, but I think it is beyond our budget at the moment we need to try to consolidate," team boss Bart Hayden said. He also pointed out that the privateer team would lose the performance breaks that it has gained since the run up to the Le Mans 24 Hours should it convert to a hybrid and run as an LMP1-H.

The Rebellion is an LMP1-L L for Light under the present rules, but the distinction in the class nomenclature will disappear for next season. Even though there are not separate classifications for LMP1-H and LMP1-L machinery, series promoter the Automobile Club de l'Ouest believes that the terminology encourages a mistaken belief that there are two LMP1 classes.

"The way the rules are written people could consider that they are fighting for a secondary category and we want to remove this," explained ACO sporting manager Vincent Beaumesnil. "The value you get as a team competing in LMP1 is to fight for the overall win."

He said that the ACO and the FIA would continue to look at ways to make the privateers running non-hybrid machinery more competitive. It has yet to be decided if the separate LMP1 privateers' classifications for drivers and teams will continue next season.

Originally on Autosport.com