LONDON (Reuters) – Formula One rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris will be team mates for the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 13/14, according to the official entry list on Saturday.
The Red Bull and McLaren drivers are sharing the Team Redline Oreca 07 LMP2 car for the esports race on the weekend that Le Mans, postponed to Sept. 19/20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, would normally take place.
Spain’s double Formula One champion and two times Le Mans winner Fernando Alonso will join Brazilian former Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello in their own entry.
Ferrari’s current F1 driver Charles Leclerc is teaming up with Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi in a Ferrari 488 GTE while Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly partners Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne in a Veloce Esports team.
A quarter of the F1 grid — five drivers — will be in the 50-car field, with 10 entries in reserve.
Two Indianapolis 500 winners have entered: Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, and France’s reigning champion Simon Pagenaud together for Team Penske.
Britain’s Jamie Chadwick, inaugural champion of the all-female W Series, will race a Mahle Racing Aston Martin Vantage GTE.
There is also an all-female Richard Mille Racing team with Katherine Legge, Tatiana Calderon, Sophia Floersch and Emily Jones.
Regular Le Mans manufacturers Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette and Aston Martin are represented in what organisers are billing as the world’s biggest virtual endurance race.
Each four-person team features a mix of professional racers and gamers.
They will have to handle conditions similar to the French endurance classic, with variable day and night weather conditions and damaged cars repairable in the pits.
No driver will be able to do more than seven hours at the wheel and each will have to do a minimum four hours.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
