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Aston customer TF Sport to contest first full WEC season in 2018/19

British outfit TF Sport will contest a full World Endurance Championship campaign for the first time this season.

The team will field a single Aston Martin Vantage GTE in the GTE Am category for the full 2018/19 superseason campaign, after making its Le Mans 24 Hours debut in '17.

TF finished second in last year's European Le Mans Series GTE category running Salih Yoluc and Euan Hankey, who will both step up to the new WEC programme alongside Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Charlie Eastwood.

Northern Irishman Eastwood, 22, was a karting world champion in his formative years before graduating into car racing and claimed last year's Carrera Cup GB contest in his final year on the Porsche Scholarship programme.

"It's a huge honour to be competing in the WEC," said team head Tom Ferrier.

"It's by far our biggest ever programme and it underlines the strength of our team at every level.

"It's a really big challenge but we're confident we will be competitive and deliver results."

Eastwood told Autosport he was under no illusions about how difficult his step up would be.

"It should be a good one - it's a bit of a change but I'm looking forward to it," he said.

"I got a silver driver rating [Hankey is gold and Yoluc bronze] and had some contact with Aston Martin.

"I had a meeting with them and Tom Ferrier and next thing I know they said you're going to be on the grid.

"I've never done a pitstop, never done a driver change and I've never been in a car more for more than one hour so there's going to be a lot of new experiences and it's going to be a challenge.

"It's going off the back of winning a championship - all those opportunities have popped up because it's very difficult to get a champion who is a silver driver.

"We're going to have the first tyre test at the start of February so that gives me a bit of time to process what it feels like.

"Everyone knows it's a steep learning curve and I don't have to set the world alight straight away but hopefully I can get a good feel for the car in pre-season testing."

TF will also run two Vantage GT3s in the British GT Championship in 2018, with factory Aston Martin racewrs and 16 WEC drivers' title winners Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen were announced as part of its line-up.

Zdroj: autosport.com