Peugeot Sport’s announcement that it has pulled the plug on its endurance racing programme understandably stunned the sport. During the Rallye Monte-Carlo, we came across Stéphane Sarrazin in the service park in Valence. In his pocket was a plane ticket for Florida to join the team for testing at Sebring, and he had trouble coming to terms with the decision. It is said that Peugeot had originally planned to prune its 2012 programme to just three races (Sebring, Spa and Le Mans), but that figure will finally be zero. The French carmaker has stopped completely and will now not take part in the championship for which it had pushed so hard…

There is plenty of encouraging news from the WEC, however. There is talk of a prototype being entered by Pescarolo Team, for example, with two cars going to Le Mans. Rebellion Racing has committed to the WEC with a pair of Toyota-engined Lolas for Neel Jani, Nicolas Prost, Andrea Belicchi and Harold Primat. OAK Racing will have a single OAK-Pescarolo LMP1 prototype, with the young Dominik Kraihamer confirmed as being part of the squad.

Strakka Racing is also putting the final touches to its 2012 campaign and Leventis/Kane/Watts are eagerly waiting to sit in the brand new HPD-ARX03 which is currently being built at the team’s base near Silverstone. Meanwhile, a busy programme on the simulator is underway. Another HPD-ARX03 will be entered by JRM for Brabham/Dumbreck/Chandhock.

The LMP2 class promises to be competitive with Morgan-badged OAK-Pescarolos, an ORECA03-Nissan for Pecom Racing (Ayari/Kaffer/Perez-Companc) and a Zytek-Nissan for Greaves Motorsport.

Felbermayr-Proton will run two Porsche 997 RSRs in the WEC, one of which will contest the LM GTE Pro class, with Lietz and Lieb in command. AF Corse is expected to have two F458s in GTE Pro and one in GTE Am.

AF Corse, FIA World Endurance Championship 2012, Pescarolo Team, Peugeot Sport, Rebellion Racing, Strakka Racing