WEC releases 29-car entry list for Nurburgring

The FIA WEC has published the 29-car entry list for the fourth round of the 2017 season at the Nurburgring, where after racing at Le Mans, the series will revert back to the standard six-hour format. And for this year's 6 Hours of Nurburgring – the final European race of the season before the flyaway rounds begin – there's plenty of driver changes up and down the order.

In LMP1, the class shrinks to five cars, the third Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050 HYBRID not scheduled to take part in the remaining rounds of the championship. This move means that Jose Maria Lopez – who is one of the several drivers who will not make the trip to the clashing Formula E round in New York – will re-join the No. 7 crew (ABOVE), alongside Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi after being moved to the No. 9 for Le Mans.

In the No. 8, Sebastien Buemi will also race in Germany rather than New York, the current Formula E championship leader hoping that his margin of 32 points atop the standings will not take too much of a hit.

The only other notable name on the LMP1 entry is Marco Bonanomi, who will continue to race with ByKolles in the sole privateer entry; James Rossiter not taking the seat back after Le Mans.

At Porsche, there's no changes. The focus switching to the title race after winning its 19th Le Mans 24 Hours; the team set to debut its high-downforce aero package on its pair of 919 Hybrids.

As it stands the No. 2 crew of Earl Bamber Earl Bamber, Timo Bernhard have opened up a commanding 21-point lead over the No. 8 Toyota trio of Anthony Davidson, Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima at the head of the Drivers' standings after winning Le Mans and scoring 50 points.

In LMP2, there's several notable changes to the driver list due to the Formula E clash.

The main ones are in the Vaillante Rebellion camp, with Formula E racer Nelson Piquet Jr. absent from the No. 13 ORECA 07 Gibson and replaced by fellow Brazilian Pipo Derani, who finished second in LMGTE Pro at Le Mans with Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK; his third-driver deal only until Le Mans. Nico Prost in the sister No. 31 car (pictured) will also head Stateside and be replaced by WEC returnee Filipe Albuquerque, who's been racing with American outfit United Autosports in the European Le Mans Series this year.

Another change comes in the form of ex-F1 driver Roberto Merhi re-joining CEFC Manor TRS Racing in place of Jean-Eric Vergne who, like his fellow Formula E counterparts, is aiming to take advantage of Buemi's absence to climb the Formula E points standings.

Meanwhile, reigning Sebring winner Alex Lynn will make his Formula E debut this weekend, the DS Virgin Racing reserve stepping in for Lopez. Therefore, he will not race with G-Drive Racing, which is fresh from a tough Le Mans appearance in which its car retired early in the race. The incident that casued the car's demise resulted in a three-minute stop-go penalty being handed to the crew to be served at the Nurburgring.

Fellow Brit Ben Hanley will take Lynn's place in the No. 26's lineup, in the seat which was originally slated to be taken by John Martin. Hanley has impressed so far this year with 10Star DragonSpeed in the European Le Mans Series, notably taking pole position at the Silverstone opener. He'll be looking to make a further impression on his WEC debut at the 'Ring.

LMP2 is the class that sees an addition to the field, with Nigel Moore and Phil Hanson racing with ELMS team Tockwith Motorsports once again. The UK-based, Gulf-backed outfit competed in the WEC at Spa ahead of Le Mans as a wildcard, and will once again bring variety to the field with a Ligier JS P217 as part of its extended LMP2 2017 program.

While the five-car GTE Am field remains unchanged for Round 4, there's a slew of changes in GTE Pro.

All but one of the Pro cars will be scaled back to a two-driver squad, as usual, with the teams opting to give two drivers more track time together as pairs in the latter rounds of the season. The exception is in the No. 97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, the British factory racing with its Le Mans-winning trio of Darren Turner, Daniel Serra and Jonny Adam again; Serra being retained after his impressive La Sarthe debut.

The only other driver change is Toni Vilander stepping in for New York-bound Sam Bird in the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari, which was announced earlier this week.

The 2017 FIA WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring is set to run from July 14-16 on the world-famous German circuit's Grand Prix Loop.