Sam Bird, the Brit who last year took the LMP2 drivers championship on his first attempt for G-Drive Racing, will be heading to Ferrari for 2016. Bird will be driving the new Ferrari 488 with Davide Rigon.
New has broken today (January 7th) that Sam Bird, who tested for Toyota’s LMP1 program in Bahrain’s rookie test, will in fact be returning to AF Corse to drive a Ferrari 488 in GTE-PRO. Although he has never driven in GTE-PRO before, Bird drove for AF Corse in the GTE-AM category on two occasions in 2014, at Silverstone and Le Mans.
The British driver will be sharing one of Ferrari’s new 488s with Davide Rigon for the full 2016 season. Rigon’s 2015 team mate, James Calado, will move on to share with 2012, 2013 and 2014 GTE-PRO champion, Gianmaria Bruni in the sister car.
This means that Toni Vilander will be leaving the team. However he will be staying with Ferrari. Vilander will be sharing the new Ferrari 488 with former WEC driver Giancarlo Fisichella in the IMSA series.
Source – Motorsport.com
Image – James Clarke (WEC-Magazin)