FIRST Motorsport Press Release:
"FIRST Motorsport is excited to announce that Hunter Ryan has joined the team and will partner Enrique Ruiz for the 2024 season. Hunter has five seasons of Formula Virtual experience, most with Ocelot, and he won the FV2 championship in 2018. We are excited to see how he will work with Enrique and have reason to believe that he can thrive within the FIRST team structure. The addition of Hunter Ryan means that Stefan Klien will serve as the team’s reserve driver for 2024. Given the team’s underwhelming performances over the past couple of seasons, the team felt that changes were needed in the driver lineup to rejuvenate the team and help the team return to form in 2024 and beyond." Hunter Ryan comes off of a disappointing season with newcomer team Kowhai, where Ryan failed to qualify for 5 races. Ryan did come close to scoring the teams maiden points in Dubai, finishing 11th – the best finish of the season for the team. In general Ryan was beaten by teammate Marcus Thunder in qualifying, but outperformed the Briton in races where both qualified. For Stefan Klien, this move by FIRST is a big blow. Stefan served as a reserve driver for FIRST for four seasons (2018-2021) before being promoted to a race seat for 2022. He achieved a best finish of 5th at the 2022 Belgian V-Prix, but had a much tougher 2023 campaign – only scoring 1 point by finishing 10th at Malaysia. Teammate Felix Perez scored 10 points on the season and generally got the better of Klien in qualifying and races. Interestingly Klien is staying with the team in a reserve role, which will be an interesting and unusual dynamic within the team. For FIRST, this marks the first time in its history that the team has replaced both drivers in the offseason. It also confirms Felix Perez’s previously rumored departure after 6 seasons. Statistically, Perez has been the most successful driver in FIRST history with one of team’s two wins, 5 podiums, and 381 of the team’s career 878 points. In addition, Perez has been associated with the team since the beginning of FIRST’s participation in Formula Virtual, as he was in the team’s youth academy starting in 2016.
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