Audi has made three changes to its sportscar line-up this year, as it attempts to regain the Le Mans 24 Hours crown from Peugeot.

This week’s AUTOSPORT magazine revealed that three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner has been dropped and Alexandre Premat will focus on the DTM, while former American Le Mans Series champion Lucas Luhr is not expected to feature.

The trio has been replaced by Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, who will share one of the R15s at Le Mans this year.

Fassler raced twice for Audi in the ALMS in 2008 and raced at Le Mans for Chevrolet in 2009. Lotterer won last year’s Japanese Super GT title and drove a Kolles-run Audi R10 at Le Mans, while Treluyer raced a Pescarolo-run Peugeot 908 in last year’s 24 Hours.

“In view of our strong competitors, we have to be perfectly positioned in terms of drivers,” said Audi motorsport boss Wolfgang Ullrich. “Marcel, Andre and Benoit attracted our attention during the past two years and we are convinced they are a very good combination for Le Mans.”

“For the time being plans for them are fully focused on Le Mans 2010, but all three of them are still relatively young and may become part of our sportscar project over the long term.”

“For me, having the chance to be part of the Audi team this year is incredible,” said Fassler. “I’m looking forward to the challenge and expect the R15 to be competing for overall victory.”

Lotterer added: “I’m proud about having been selected by such a successful team, this is a major step in my career. Last year as a Le Mans rookie I learned a lot, now I’ve got the chance to compete for a top-class team.”

Treluyer said: “I’d never have expected to immediately get a slot with a factory team for Le Mans after my return from Japan. With Andre and Marcel, we’ve got a car in which we can clinch overall victory.”

Le Mans Series champions Tomas Enge and Stefan Mucke will join Darren Turner in the Young Driver Aston Martin GT1 team.

Mucke, Enge and their co-driver Jan Charouz took the LMS LMP1 title with Aston Martin Racing last year. While Charouz has now returned to single-seaters in Formula Renault 3.5, his co-champions will remain within the Aston fold to race for the Fischer Racing-run Young Driver AMR project in the new GT1 World Championship.

Enge will team up with Turner in the #007 DBR9, while Mucke will be paired with 26-year-old Dane Christoffer Nygaard, who previously raced for Fischer’s Ford GT3 team.

Young Driver AMR will run two of the four Astons in GT1, with the others entered by fellow GT3 graduate squad Hexis Racing. With a capacity grid of 24 cars expected and Nissan, Ford, Corvette, Maserati and Lamborghini represented in the field alongside Aston, Enge has high hopes for the series.

“For me it is a big challenge,” said the Czech driver. “In each race, there will be 24 competitive GT cars made by six manufacturers. From some point of view it would be an impressive return to the legendary and attractive racing of the nineties.”

Le Mans Series champions Tomas Enge and Stefan Mucke will join Darren Turner in the Young Driver Aston Martin GT1 team.

Mucke, Enge and their co-driver Jan Charouz took the LMS LMP1 title with Aston Martin Racing last year. While Charouz has now returned to single-seaters in Formula Renault 3.5, his co-champions will remain within the Aston fold to race for the Fischer Racing-run Young Driver AMR project in the new GT1 World Championship.

Enge will team up with Turner in the #007 DBR9, while Mucke will be paired with 26-year-old Dane Christoffer Nygaard, who previously raced for Fischer’s Ford GT3 team.

Young Driver AMR will run two of the four Astons in GT1, with the others entered by fellow GT3 graduate squad Hexis Racing. With a capacity grid of 24 cars expected and Nissan, Ford, Corvette, Maserati and Lamborghini represented in the field alongside Aston, Enge has high hopes for the series.

“For me it is a big challenge,” said the Czech driver. “In each race, there will be 24 competitive GT cars made by six manufacturers. From some point of view it would be an impressive return to the legendary and attractive racing of the nineties.”

Thor-Christian Ebbesvik has joined Le Mans Series outfit Team Bruichladdich for the 2010 season.

The 26-year-old Norwegian will share an LMP2 class Zytek 09Sb with Tim Greaves and Karim Ojjeh in this year’s LMS and Le Mans 24 Hours.

“I am extremely excited by this tremendous opportunity,” said Ebbesvik. “The LMS is a massive step in my career and I am very grateful for the faith Team Bruichladdich has shown in me. I will be doing everything in my power to repay that faith on the track.”

Ebbesvik raced in Formula Ford in Britain in 2005 and ‘06, and competed in Spanish F3 from 2007-09.

Thor-Christian Ebbesvik has joined Le Mans Series outfit Team Bruichladdich for the 2010 season.

The 26-year-old Norwegian will share an LMP2 class Zytek 09Sb with Tim Greaves and Karim Ojjeh in this year’s LMS and Le Mans 24 Hours.

“I am extremely excited by this tremendous opportunity,” said Ebbesvik. “The LMS is a massive step in my career and I am very grateful for the faith Team Bruichladdich has shown in me. I will be doing everything in my power to repay that faith on the track.”

Ebbesvik raced in Formula Ford in Britain in 2005 and ‘06, and competed in Spanish F3 from 2007-09.

Darren Turner will race in the FIA’s GT1 World Championship in 2010, after being announced as one of the racers of the ‘Young Driver AMR’ team.

The German squad, new to the championship, will race an Aston Martin DBR9, reuniting Turner with the car with which he took victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2007 and 2008.

“I’m really excited to be doing the full FIA GT1 World Championship,” Turner said. “Not only because we will be visiting some fantastic circuits but also because the level of competition will make it an intense and enjoyable season.

“I’m looking forward to working with the Young Driver AMR team. After visiting the team’s base in Paderborn (Germany) last week I can see that they have the infrastructure and resources to achieve great success.”

Turner was the man in charge of carrying out the first shakedown of the car back in 2004.

“This is the most exciting part for me,” he added. “To come all the way from the first shakedown to two Le Mans victories and now this, is very special.

“I drove the car briefly last week and even after I got home I was still buzzing from it. Just hearing the wail of the V12 again brought it all back to me. This is going to be great.”

The British driver will on track with his new team next week for the first official test at Portimao, Portugal.

The season gets underway in Abu Dhabi in mid-April.

Adrian Fernandez is closing on a deal to race a works-run Aston Martin Racing LMP1 coupe in a short programme of American Le Mans Series races, this week’s AUTOSPORT magazine reveals.

The 44-year-old Mexican, who had to close his eponymous team after taking the ALMS LMP2 title last year, has confirmed that he is working on a plan for 2010. His Aston programme would likely encompass the blue riband ALMS races at Sebring, Long Beach and Road Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans, as well as the Le Mans 24 Hours.

“I’m talking to Aston, but right now there’s still a way to go to make it happen,” said Fernandez. “I hope we can finalise it by the end of the month.”

AMR team principal George Howard-Chappell refused to confirm that he was in discussions with Fernandez, but suggested an announcement of AMR’s prototype plans for 2010 was imminent.

“We are getting close to being able to say something,” he said. “We are waiting for a contract to be signed off.”

AMR is unlikely to return to the Le Mans Series full-time to defend its title. A limited programme focused on Le Mans looks most likely.

Jarno Trulli says the new Lotus team is even better equipped than he had hoped when he decided to join it – but admitted that his expectations for the squad’s first year remain limited.

The Italian was impressed by Lotus’s premises in Norfolk, noting that the factory had more resources than he expected for a start-up operation.

“It’s rather new, and it seems very modern to me,” Trulli told Gazzetta dello Sport. “They used to build the MGs for Le Mans here. We have everything, including the facility to produce carbon fibre. On top of that, we also have an excellent windtunnel at our disposal, which I visited on Monday.

“For a new team, we are in a better position than I would have hoped.”

Trulli is moving to Lotus after five years at Toyota, a team that enjoyed huge funding from its parent company. While full of respect for Lotus, he said its aims have to be much lower than the world championship glory Toyota had once hoped it would achieve.

“Because Lotus is smaller, it could turn out being more efficient, but there’s no doubt it doesn’t have Toyota’s potential,” said Trulli.

He said his initial ambition was simply to do justice to the legendary Lotus name.

“We are under no illusions: we are focusing on a low-profile kind of season in order to get in the points once and again,” Trulli said. “The first objective is to give dignity to an F1 team called Lotus. It’s a three to five-year long-term project.”

Marc Goossens is to continue with the RSR Jaguar project for the 2010 American Le Mans Series season.

The Belgian will partner team boss Paul Gentilozzi at the squad, which launched its new GT2 Jaguar late last year. Goossens was part of team’s test programme and also drove the car in its competition debut in the season finale at Laguna Seca.

“I have great respect for Marc,” said Gentilozzi. “He is a very talented driver that has a lot to offer to this Jaguar programme.

“He provided valuable feedback during our initial testing and development in 2009, and drove flawlessly at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

“Moving forward for 2010 and fighting for a championship title we know Marc is going to be a key factor both on and off track.”

RSR will also add a third, yet to be named, driver for the ALMS’ longer-distance events.

Porsche has placed factory driver and former GT2 champion Wolf Henzler at the Falken team for the 2010 American Le Mans Series.

After winning the 2008 ALMS GT2 title with Jorg Bergmeister at Flying Lizard, Henzler moved to Farnbacher Loles last season. But with that team’s future in doubt, the German will partner Bryan Sellers at the Falken Porsche squad, which is backed by and uses rubber from the tyre manufacturer of the same name.

Henzler will be one of three factory Porsche drivers in the ALMS, with 2009 GT2 champions Bergmeister and Patrick Long already confirmed for another season with Flying Lizard.

Porsche has also announced that its Le Mans Series GT2 champions Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz will stay with Felbermayr-Proton, with Patrick Pilet remaining at IMSA Performance.

But it has dropped Emmanuel Collard and Sascha Maassen from its line-up of factory-supported drivers, and does not currently have a full-time programme for its former ALMS LMP2 champions Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas, who raced in Grand-Am with Penske last year.

The pair remain contracted to Porsche and will focus on test and development work initially, but are confirmed to race in the Nurburgring 24 Hours.