Rebellion Racing is a Swiss racing team that competes in endurance racing. The team competed in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season and won the LMP1 teams' title in the 2011 Le Mans Series season. The team started as an association between Speedy Racing and Sebah Racing, which began in 2008. Rebellion Racing's team principal is Alexandre Pesci and the team manager is Bart Hayden. From 2011 to 2016 the team participated in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LMP1 category as a privateer, with two Lola B12/60 cars from 2011 to 2013, and two Rebellion R-One cars from 2014 to 2016. In 2017 the team moved to the LMP2 category with two Oreca 07 cars. On 4 December 2019, it was announced that from the 2022-23 Season onwards, the team would be set to become the factory team of Peugeot Sport, and will run Le Mans Hypercars in the FIA World Endurance Championship as Rebellion Peugeot. However, on 13 February 2020, it was announced by the team's parent company, Rebellion Corporation, that following a strategic committee meeting, it was decided that the firm would cease its motorsport business operations after the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans.
2011 season
In 2011, Rebellion Racing and Toyota Motorsport GmbH confirmed their plans for a Le Mans Prototype LMP1 engine supply partnership. Two Rebellion Racing Lola LMP1 cars powered by Toyota engines in LMP1. At the end of October 2010, Rebellion Racing and Toyota Motorsport engineers conducted an evaluation test programme at Portimao, Portugal and Monteblanco, Spain. The team have renewed the contracts of its regular 2010 drivers. Neel Jani / Nicolas Prost and Andrea Belicchi /Jean-Christophe Boullion will again spearhead the Rebellion Racing attack.
At the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans, the no. 12 car of Nicolas Prost/Neel Jani/Jeroen Bleekemolen qualified 8th and finished 6th overall. It was the first gasoline finisher. The no. 13 car of Andrea Belicchi/Jean-Christophe Boullion and Guy Smith retired after 190 laps.
In the season finale in Zhuhai, the top gasoline-powered LMP1 car was the Rebellion team's Toyota-engined Lola coupe driven by Neel Jani and Nicolas Prost. It came back from an unscheduled stop to change front and rear bodywork, after Jani ran into the back of Allan McNish's Audi R18, to overhaul the OAK Racing OAK-Pescarolo driven by Alexandre Premat, Olivier Pla and Jacques Nicolet for fourth position and scored the points needed to secure third place in the Team classification in LM P1 of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, behind the turbo diesels of the Peugeot and Audi factory teams.
2012 season
World Endurance Championship
On 1 February 2012, it was announced that German driver Nick Heidfeld would drive a Rebellion Lola-Toyota in select rounds of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Heidfeld will share the wheel of the Anglo-Swiss squad's No. 12 LMP1 entry with Neel Jani and Nicolas Prost at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, Six Hours of Spa and 24 Hours of Le Mans. He completes Rebellion's lineup, with Jeroen Bleekemolen having been announced on 31 January as the third driver in the No. 13 Lola-Toyota with Andrea Belicchi and Harold Primat.
Rebellion Racing entered the 2012 Petit Le Mans to attempt to score an overall victory at the race since Audi chose to not enter the race. After early battling with Muscle Milk Pickett Racing, the latter crashed when attempting to pass a GT car, allowing Rebellion to lead the rest of the race and win Petit Le Mans.
2013 season
Rebellion Racing participated in both the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship season and 2013 American Le Mans Series season. But in July, midway through the season, the team decided to end its ALMS programme and focus on the WEC. After that, it only contested the Petit Le Mans series finale at Road Atlanta in October. Rebellion Racing took their second consecutive overall victory at Petit Le Mans, after Muscle Milk Pickett Racing again retired halfway through the race.
2014 season
On 8 June 2013, Rebellion confirmed they have entered a partnership with Oreca to design and build their own LMP1 car, the Rebellion R-One. The car debuted at the 2014 Spa 6 Hours in the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship and continues to use Toyota engines.
2015 season
On 3 February 2015, Rebellion Racing announced a new engine partnership for the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season. The Rebellion R-One LMP-1 cars will be powered by twin-turbo engines from Advanced Engine Research. Rebellion Racing will use AER P60 V6 GDI twin-turbocharged power units. On 25 March 2015, it was announced that Alexandre Imperatori and Daniel Abt had signed up with the team to pilot the squad's second car alongside Dominik Kraihamer.
In 2018 WEC switched to a winter calendar. Rebellion Racing returned to the LMP1 class with Rebellion R13, with two full season entries. They competed in 2018 and 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans. Won their first overall WEC race this season due to a penalty to the Toyota ahead at the Silverstone round. They announced a single full-season entry for the 2019-2020 season, with another entry set to be entered on race-by-race basis depending on sponsorship.
2019-2020 season
Raced with two cars at the season opening round at Silverstone with the remaining races being with one car. Rebellion racing #1 took pole and won its first "on track" race in the 4h of Shanghai on November 10th. And another win and pole in the same time in Austin, Texas. Lone Star Le Mans.Becoming the first privateer team in WEC history to get pole and the win. But in Bapco 8h Bahrain at bahrain. Rebellion #1 got pole but doesn't win the race. Because collision with #5 Team LNT Ginetta at the very 1st lap of the race. So Rebellion #1 finished in 3rd behind the 2 Toyotas #7, #8
