Silverstone BES call for Mardenborough

Nissan LMP1 driver Jann Mardenborough has been drafted into the Japanese marque's driver lineup for this weekend's Silverstone round of the Blancpain Endurance Series.

The Briton, who is also racing in GP3 with Carlin this year, will take the professional seat in the #22 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 run by RJN Motorsport under the GT Academy banner. The 2011 Nissan GT Academy winner will race the Pro-Am entry along with two subsequent winners of the gamer-to-driver scheme.

Frenchman Gaetan Paletou, who won last year's European Academy, takes up his seat in the car after missing the Monza event because of a clash with the European Le Mans Series, in which he is racing in LMP3.

Mexican Ricardo Sanchez is contesting the full BES in the car after triumphing in last year's International Academy.

Mardenborough and Paletou, respectively, replace Florian Strauss and Marc Grasser, whose primary focus in 2015 is racing an MRS-run Nissan together in the ADAC GT Masters series.

Silver-ranked Strauss took the professional seat in the #22 car at Monza and it is expected this will be filled by different Nissan drivers over the course of the five-round BES.

Rules for the Pro-Am class allow one platinum or gold-ranked driver so long as the other two are bronze-rated.

Sanchez and his new teammates will switch to a 2015-spec GT-R NISMO at Silverstone after racing a year-old car in Italy. The unchanged lineup of Alex Buncombe, Wolfgang Reip and Katsumasa Chiyo will drive Nissan's Pro Cup entry at Silverstone.

Originally on Autosport.com