Peugeot have confirmed that their leading driver going into the 2014 season will be BMW Zyla reject Lewis Ellington. Gerard Alaniz has also been retained by the team, along with signing LWGP test driver Fillipio Fazio. Peugeot also announceda new title sponsor for 2014. At a press conference earlier today, Peugeot Grand Prix announced after persistent rumours that Lewis Ellington would be the team's first driver when heading into the 2014 season. The team have been expected to sign Ellington for numerous weeks now and team principal, Kazuki Armos, has been openly supportive of the British driver. At the press conference Kazuki Armos said, "We are pleased to announce that Lewis Ellington will be our leading driver heading into the 2014 season. We have struggled this season but we believe we will have a competitive car next season and we are pleased that Lewis will lead us forward in it. Lewis is a race winner! We couldn't be happier to have a race winner in our team, I do believe he could have won more races had BMW Zyla not been excluded, he is a huge talent!" Lewis Ellington was also present, "I am extremely happy to be joining Peugeot for the next season. Peugeot are a leading car manufacturer so to be joining such a massive group is just amazing. After losing my seat I was gutted, absolutely gutted! I thought I had lost my chance to race here, I had proven I could win races, and to have that taken away from me was awful. I am extremely grateful that Kazuki has seen the potential and has signed me to lead forward the team on what will be a memorable journey". The announcement of Lewis Ellington to Peugeot has caused the team to announce a new title sponsor courtesy of Ellington. Going into next season the team's title sponsor will be telecommunications giant, Vodafone. The team's sponsors will be Vodafone, BNP Paribas, TF1, Badoit and Total The team also announced their test driver line up for 2014.
Despite initially revealing that Gerard Alaniz would not be part of the team in 2014, Peugeot have announced that he will be their 3rd and reserve driver. When asked why Alaniz was retained Armos answered, "We initially wanted to start afresh with Peugeot. We had underperformed this season and we lost all our sponsorship backing at the start of the season. We had thought that all our drivers had underperformed. When we analysed the results we noticed that Alaniz has consistently beaten his teammates most of the time and has scored all our points. We decided to throw his a lifeline, we are pleased to say his will be out 3rd and reserve driver through contract and will be first in line to replace injured drivers during the season. Shouldn't a suitable French rook to race alongside Ellington be found, French driver Alaniz will fill the space. "We are glad Fillipio agreed to be our test driver this coming season", Armos said, "He currently has a wealth of test driver experience and this will be extremely valuable to us next season in order to develop our car." While the team have not announced a second driver for the team, either French rookie, Frances Bouvert or Jean DePanon from Peugeot GP2 team, Peurteor, are expected to fill the void with the other driver joining the test driver team.
4 Comments
Nic M
29/10/2013 02:49:00 pm
I'm glad Alaniz has been retained for Peugeot, considering he has done a decent job really to score all of the teams points. It's great to Ellington return as the lead driver for Peugeot, it's been rumoured for weeks!
Reply
Robert
29/10/2013 08:39:37 pm
If I may, I would like to say I think the team has made the right decision signing great drivers from elsewhere rather than talent from France that may not be up to their standard. However, I hope we hear more of the documentary :) and I am hoping that the French drivers in the IJGPC come through this team, I will be so proud... :P
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
|