Robert Kubica will team up with Ferrari F1 reserve driver Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye in a third 499P hypercar this season.
The third 499P on the World Endurance Championship grid – entered under the name ‘AF Corse’ unlike the two ‘Ferrari AF Corse’ cars – will carry number 83.Ferrari returned to top-level sportscar racing last season with the 499P hypercar, which claimed overall victory in last year’s Le Mans 24 Hours with the number 51 team of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi. It was the only round of last year’s WEC in which Toyota failed to claim overall victory.
Expanding to a three-car entry for 2024, Ferrari previously revealed grand prix winner Kubica would be one of its new drivers. They have now confirmed Shwartzman, who has acted as Ferrari’s F1 reserve driver for the last two seasons, and new Ferrari factory driver Ye will complete the line-up.
While Ye has previous experience at hypercar level, having raced with Jota last season, both Kubica and Shwartzman will be racing in the top class of the WEC for the first time this year. Kubica was one of the drivers of the LMP2 title-winning WRT team in 2023, alongside Louis Deletraz and Rui Andrade.
“After winning the LMP2 class in 2023, I am very happy to be able to drive the AF Corse Ferrari 499P this season,” Kubica said.
“We will have to try to keep our feet on the ground and do our best. Especially at the beginning of the season it will not be easy, but we will try to maximise track time to gain crucial experience.”
Shwartzman, who raced with AF Corse in the GT World Challenge last season, said he has ambitions of winning the world championship with his new team.
“We are feeling confident and ambitious,” Shwartzman said. “Confident about the job we will do with the team, and ambitious about the results we want to achieve this year.
“We will have little time and many things to focus on, but I will give my best to adapt to the car, to the team and everything as fast as possible. I am confident that the season will be positive and I am really motivated to get good results, with the ambition to win the world title.”
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Yes (@come-on-kubica)
12th January 2024, 20:48
Interesting that the man formerly known as Kanye West is in the third seat.
Asd
12th January 2024, 21:15
I’m glad to see Kubica in “LMP1” again. And I really hope his team-mates are fast.
MichaelN
13th January 2024, 19:47
Bit surprising that Ye isn’t sticking with Porsche, as he got seemingly ever more involved with them. Perhaps his earlier partnership with Kubica was an important reason for this move. Their last lap loss at Le Mans in 2021 was unfortunate.
Should be interesting to see how the two of them do at Ferrari.