6 Hours of Spa pre-race notebook

FIA WEC entry list finalized for Spa

It's race week at Spa Francorchamps for the FIA World Endurance Championship teams and drivers, who will make the traditional trip to the Ardennes forest as part of their final Le Mans preparations.

The final entry list for the race is up to 30 from the 27 who took part at Silverstone last month, with the additions all in the LMP ranks. The third Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050 will make its debut, bolstering LMP1's car count to six, and the addition of Signatech Alpine's second A470 and Tockwith Motorsport's Ligier JS P217 has seen the LMP2 field expand to 11 cars.

• Entry list

In GTE there are no changes, with exactly the same field of cars and drivers making the trip to Belgium. There has been some shuffling of drivers in the prototype ranks, though.

Vaxiviere replaced by Hanley

Frenchman Matthieu Vaxivière, the 22-year-old who shined in the opening round of the WEC season at Silverstone for TDS Racing, has been forced to skip the trip to Spa after a training accident.

Vaxivière sustained a fractured foot and ligament damage while jumping a small river, and will therefore be unable to drive. Because of this, he'll be replaced on short notice for this weekend's race by British driver Ben Hanley (pictured, far right, with Henrik Hedman and Nicolas Lapierre at center), who will make his WEC debut racing with TDS' regular drivers Emmanuel Collard and Francois Perrodo.

Hanley – who usually drives for American outfit DragonSpeed in the European Le Mans Series' LMP2 class – also stood out racing at Silverstone last month, putting DragonSpeed's ORECA on pole position for the ELMS race.

Vaxivière was also due to drive for French LMP2 team Panis Barthez Competition at the ELMS round at Monza later this month, though he has been ruled out of that appearance too, leaving the team scrambling to find a third driver.

It is understood that Vaxivière will return to TDS Racing for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Dumas steps in for Lapierre in WEC LMP2 debut

Reinging FIA WEC LMP1 world champion and Le Mans winner Romain Dumas will make his WEC return this week at Spa, driving in place of fellow Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre in the No.36 Signatech Alpine A470 with Gustavo Menezes and Matt Rao. Lapierre will drive in the No.9 Toyota TS050 Hybrid with Stephane Sarrazin and Yuji Kunimoto, which will act as the Japanese team's third racer for Spa and Le Mans only.

This marks Dumas' WEC LMP2 debut, after racing in the series with Porsche as part of its LMP1 and GTE Pro program from 2013 to 2016. He also raced with Audi Sport Team Joest in 2012 in an Audi R18.

Dumas is no stranger to racing in LMP2, though. In the past he won the 2007 and 2008 American Le Mans Series LMP2 titles with Penske Racing, racing in a Porsche RS Spyder with 2015 FIA WEC LMP1 champion Timo Bernhard.

LMP2 teams go testing at Magny Cours

Three LMP2 teams went testing last week at Magny Cours as part of a Dunlop pre-Le Mans tire test. ELMS teams Tockwith Motorsport – which will race in the LMP2 class at Spa this weekend – and United Autosports joined FIA WEC team G-Drive Racing for two days of night running at the famous French circuit.

Over the two days the teams and drivers ran from 11 p.m. until 4 a.m., testing various Dunlop compounds ahead of the French classic next month. G-Drive Racing's Alex Lynn explained to RACER that the running over the two days for the Russian-flagged team were extremely positive.

"It was a really good test," said the 2017 12 Hours of Sebring winner, who hadn't driven at Magny Cours prior to last week. "I drove on the Tuesday, and our ORECA 07 ran faultlessly. I was really encouraged by the tire performance, as well as the car in my first time driving it at night.

"We tried out various compounds, some of which performed exceptionally. Dunlop is making strides with its LMP2 tires every time we turn laps.

"I had to take part in DS developmental duties after that, so on the Wednesday my teammate Roman Rusinov drove for the six-hour slot."

Larbre confirms its full Le Mans lineup

Christian Phillipon, Romain Brandela and Fernando Rees have been confirmed as Larbre Competition's drivers for its Le Mans 24 Hours appearance racing its Corvette C7.R in the GTE Am class.

The French team – which usually competes in the FIA WEC's GTE Am division full time as the only Corvette GTE customer team – has had to scale back its efforts this year, opting to sit out from racing in the WEC. Its only other appearance outside of Le Mans in GTE is set for later this month in the ELMS race at Monza.

In Italy, Fernando Rees – who in the past has driven for Aston Martin Racing in GTE Pro – will not race with the team, leaving just Brandela and Phillipon to share driving duties in the Chevy.