As DragonSpeed heads to this week’s official pre-race test for the 2016 Mobil 1 Sebring 12 Hours endurance classic, the Florida-based outfit has announced that Ben Hanley will co-drive the team’s ORECA O5J-Nissan LMP2 alongside Henrik Hedman and Nicolas Lapierre in this year’s European Le Mans Series (ELMS). The 31-year-old from Manchester, England will fill the Silver slot in the team’s driver lineup between the Platinum-ranked Lapierre and Bronze-status Hedman.
Hanley was a frontrunner in junior and senior karting from 1999 to 2005, claiming 6 British national and international titles. He then stepped onto the Formula Renault single-seater ladder, winning 6 races on his way to second in the 2005 Italian FR 2.0 championship and finishing runner-up in the 2007 FR3.5 series with a pair of victories. Frustrated by bad luck in a partial season of GP2 in 2008, Ben made a successful return to karts, scoring top-three results in a further 8 European and World Championship events through 2015. His karting efforts were punctuated by outings in Euroseries 3000 (2009) and Superleague Formula (2010) competition, with 1 win in each.
“I’m delighted to join DragonSpeed for the ELMS in 2016,” said Hanley. “This will be my first season in cars since 2010 and first in sportscars, so I need to get back into the swing and learn a new discipline at the same time. Even so, I aim to be up to speed quickly and contributing to achieving the team’s goals. Elton has put together a terrific team and I can’t thank him and Henrik enough for this great opportunity. I look forward to visiting Sebring and getting to know the team better before I get behind the wheel of the ORECA in Europe.”
DragonSpeed team principal Elton Julian said, “It’s a real pleasure to welcome Ben to the team. His talent and determination have shown throughout the ups and downs of his career, and he’s super motivated to make his comeback in sportscars. We see Ben as the strong Silver-level driver we need to round out our ELMS squad, and look forward to working with him.”