Frijns looking forward to his debut with the WEC
New to the FIA World Endurance Championship for 2021 is Robin Frijns, a driver who has cultivated an impressive career in a variety of international and world championships over the last decade.
Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented and most naturally gifted drivers of his generation, Frijns will join Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi in a WRT-run Oreca 07 Gibson LMP2 car this season.
From Maastricht in the Netherlands, the 29-year-old has won in every major category he has consistently participated in from Formula Renault 3.5 series, to GP2, Formula E, DTM and GT3 racing.
But despite a varied and diverse career, he has limited experience in LMP machinery.
“The last time I drove an LMP2 car was three years ago at Daytona (for JOTA) so it will take a bit of time getting back to the old rhythm with high downforce cars,” said Frijns, who tested for two days at Barcelona in February.
“I actually only drove the low spec downforce at Daytona. So, at Barcelona it was the first time for me that I drove the highest downforce one, which was great fun. I think the team was pretty well prepared for the first test, and we had a whole schedule, which we wanted to test with the car to understand certain ways of how the car reacted with certain set-up changes.”
Frijns believes that he will form a strong unit with team-mates Habsburg, who he raced against in DTM last season, and former Japanese F3 driver, Milesi.
“Obviously Ferdinand has more experience in the car than me as he did the Asian Championship with G-Drive. Charles also has some experience with TDS, who he drove with too. So, they are coming with some good ideas… I've grown up with high downforce cars and it's exactly the same way I drove like for back in World Series time and F1 (testing) so it was like coming home in a way.”
The Dutchman continued: “I think it's good in many ways for us that there was a little delay in starting the season because I think we were quite tight on getting ready for Portimao. For the team there is more time to check everything again, and to make everything as good as possible.”
Fresh from their ELMS win at Barcelona at the weekend, Team WRT will also be competing at the upcoming Prologue and the TOTAL 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (29 April – 1 May).
