Maldonado exits Jota LMP2 line-up ahead of new WEC season

Pastor Maldonado has quit Jota’s LMP2 line-up in the week leading up to the new FIA World Endurance Championship season.

Ex-Formula 1 driver and one-time grand prix winner Maldonado had been due to continue to race alongside Roberto Gonzalez and Anthony Davidson following a first campaign together through the 2018-19 WEC ‘super season’.

The trio moved from the closed DragonSpeed LMP2 squad to Jota’s in-house effort, running the #38 Oreca 07 Gibson, with the new season starting this Sunday at Silverstone.

However, Maldonado will not feature in the line-up after confirming in the week prior to the race that he had withdrawn, citing a failure in “reaching a balance agreement between the parties”.

Now without a racing programme, Maldonado said he hoped to “give news about my future soon”.

The Venezuelan driver will be replaced in Jota’s line-up by Antonio Felix da Costa, who previously raced in the WEC with BMW through its single season GTE-Pro factory programme in ’18-19.

Felix da Costa is reportedly in line to take up a drive with DS Techeetah in Formula E for the series’ sixth season, which would require a complete split with BMW.

The new WEC season gets underway with the 4 Hours of Silverstone on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

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Un saludo a todos mis seguidores. Ante todo quiero agradecer el gran apoyo que me brindan día a día. Les quiero informar de antemano que no estaré participando esta temporada junto a mis compañeros #RobertoGonzalez y #AnthonyDavidson en el equipo Jota-Sport, campeonato @fiawec_official debido a no alcanzar un acuerdo equilibrado para ambas partes. Aprovecho para desearle el mejor de los éxitos en este campeonato #2019 - #2020. Les daré información sobre mi futuro pronto. Hello everyone. First si want to thanks all of you for the amazing support that you give me every day. I want to inform that officially I’ll not participate this season together with my teammates #RobertoGonzalez and #AnthonyDavidson in Jota-Sport at @fiawec_official due to not reaching a balance agreement between the parties. I take the opportunity to wish the best of luck to my ex-teammates for this championship 2019-2020. I’ll give you news about my future soon. ————————————————— #motorsport #wec #championship #racing #f1 #pastormaldonado #1 #venezuela #news #cars #future #fit #always #ready #for #more

A post shared by PASTOR MALDONADO (@pastormaldo) on Aug 23, 2019 at 7:10am PDT