On the day of the Pesage, the Brazilian showed up highly motivated by the prospect of racing the 24 Hours again with AXR’s Cadillac, even though he remains Aston Martin’s first choice to replace Stroll. But nothing is likely to be decided before next week.
Felipe Drugovich is fully focused on the 24 Hours of Le Mans, also because it’s still unclear what will happen regarding a potential Formula 1 outing for him at the Canadian Grand Prix.
On Friday, the Brazilian attended the ‘Pesage’ together with teammate Frederik Vesti while the technical checks were being carried out on the #311 Cadillac, which he will share with the Dane and Jack Aitken on the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Taking the stage, Felipe Drugovich expressed his satisfaction at being back in France to race with Action Express Racing, explaining that, for now, that’s what matters.
“It’s definitely great to be here again, after having so much fun last year; I talked about it for weeks, it was amazing to experience the atmosphere in the streets, with the fans, and I really hoped to come back,” said the South American.
“I think this year we’ll have a good package, especially since we are four Cadillacs, so for now I can say it’s all really exciting and looks promising.”
Naturally, he also commented on his contractual situation, as he is Aston Martin’s primary reserve driver in F1. As we know, Lance Stroll underwent wrist surgery and his participation in Montréal next week remains in doubt.
This puts Felipe Drugovich in a sort of limbo: continuing to prepare for Le Mans with the V-Series.R while keeping his phone on in case a call comes to replace the Canadian driver, although it seems nothing will be decided before next week.
“When I started racing prototypes, Aston Martin’s LMH wasn’t ready yet, so it was an easy choice to go with Cadillac. But I’m very happy to see the Valkyrie here, and I was thrilled to take part in Le Mans 2024 with the V-Series.R. They called me back for the 24 Hours of Daytona, so I’m happy with where I stand right now.”
“I’ll focus completely on this race and I want to think of it as the best race of the year. Clearly, there’s a time and place for everything in life, and I still don’t know what will happen, so my approach remains to focus on this commitment.”
“If I start thinking about what might happen, I could go crazy and lose focus entirely, so I prefer to live as if nothing’s going on. And in the past two weeks, nothing has happened, even though I’m obviously talking with people in F1. That’s the situation, and I’m their reserve driver if needed.”
As we explained a few days ago, if Felipe Drugovich were to head to Canada, it would trigger a significant domino effect. The other reserve for Aston Martin F1 is Stoffel Vandoorne, but Felipe takes priority over the Belgian, whose main commitment is to drive the Peugeot 9X8.
If the decision were to fall on Vandoorne, Peugeot has Theo Pourchaire as a backup driver, but then the Frenchman would in turn have to be replaced at Algarve Pro Racing. The LMP2 team has Sophia Flörsch under contract, and she would thus be the likely replacement in the #25 Oreca left vacant by Pourchaire.
Louis Deletraz is another driver under contract with Cadillac, but since all seats in the American LMDh cars are taken, he accepted to race at Le Mans with AO Racing-TF Sport in LMP2, which would also need to find a replacement if the Swiss driver were called up by AXR.
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