The REBELLION Racing team is heading to France for the 79th edition of the world famous 24 Heures du Mans with confidence and strong determination.

For 2011, TOYOTA, thru Toyota Motorsport Germany(TMG), is returning to Le Mans with an exclusive engine supply agreement with REBELLION Racing as their team partner.

With two Lola coupé - Toyota LMP1 cars entered for the race, REBELLION Racing’s aim for the forthcoming 24 Heures du Mans is no less than to be the first placed petrol car to be strongly placed amongst the diesel cars. REBELLION Racing will face extremely competitive opposition with six factory diesel Peugeots and Audis and seven petrol cars including 3 Pescarolo-Judds and a pair of factory Aston Martins.

The diesel cars are still some way ahead of the petrol cars, so it will be tough to race against them. Diesel-powered cars have dominated the LMP1 category over for the past five years. A number of regulation changes have been introduced to try to bring the performance of the petrol cars closer to their diesel equivalents but REBELLION Racing, like all other teams running petrol LMP1s, will still have a mountain to climb. Diesel race engine technology is relatively new compared to petrol, so bigger steps in performance can be achieved, making it easier to compensate for the changes imposed by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest.

In Lola-Toyota #12, the young and talented duo Neel Jani from Switzerland and Frenchman Nicolas Prost – son of former Four time Formula One World Champion Alain Prost – is joined back by Jeroen Bleekemolen from the netherlands. The LMP2 winner of 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours, was already part of the team during Sebring 12 Hours.

In Lola-Toyota #13, the 2010 drivers trio is reunited, the team’s experienced and talented regulars, Italian Andrea Belicchi and Frenchman Jean-Christophe Boullion, will welcome back Guy Smith from Great Britain, winner of the 2003 edition of the 24 Heures du Mans with Bentley.

Team Manager, Bart Hayden said how much REBELLION Racing were looking forward to the event : “we head to Le Mans with great optimism, the races earlier this year have helped us in our preparations for the 24 hour race.

We are stronger this year, we have strenghened our technical team, our technical partners at Lola, Toyota Motorsport, Cosworth and Michelin have all worked hard to help us develop the cars.

The new Toyota engine have delivered a strong reliability and good performances since the beginign of the season at 12 hours of Sebring. We have introduced a lot of upgrades and new developments to the cars with a new aero package, new front suspension, longer wheelbase and we have adopted the wider front tyres available from our partner Michelin.

We have really strong driver line-ups in both cars we can rely on to express on the track hte potential of the cars and run a smart race.
We can’t wait to get out there and pit our cars against the might of the factory teams. We will deliver our optimum performance and with a little good fortune, we hope to figure strongly in the final classifications of the race with both cars, and one as the first petrol car.”