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The trio has been replaced by Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, who will share one of the R15s at Le Mans this year.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

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn believes being paired with Michael Schumacher will help Nico Rosberg will develop into a potential champion.

With Schumacher having traditionally taken precedence over his team-mates, the issue of driver equality has been much discussed since it was confirmed that the seven times champion would come out of retirement to join Rosberg in the Mercedes GP line-up.

Brawn has been adamant that Rosberg would not be a subservient number two, and revealed that Mercedes wants to build its longer-term future around the younger German.

“We signed Nico first and have tried to sign Nico for several years,” Brawn told the official Formula 1 website. “We had strong discussions with him two years ago.

“We see Nico as a great talent, but it needs finishing and maturing. He has not won a race yet, although he came very close, and I think it is a wonderful partnership between him and Michael. They work well together and I see Michael helping Nico develop his career.

“Michael has come out of retirement but we have to accept that there will come a day when he has to stop forever and then we will have Nico.

“They must both try the hardest to beat each other but if it is done with the right spirit, with the right approach, then both will gain enormously. I view it as a very exciting partnership and I am glad Nico is part of it.”

Brawn insisted that there had never been any intention for Schumacher to become the dominant driver when they worked together at Benetton and Ferrari.

“First of all I never wanted Michael to dominate. Michael dominated because he was the best,” he said. “There was never a structure that enabled him to dominate. He dominated because he was the fastest and most consistent driver. So we will have to see how the season develops.

“It is not good having one driver dominate a team because that means the other driver is not performing as he should. I don’t want Michael to dominate. I want them both to compete very strongly and both to win races.”

But he acknowledged that Mercedes would have no qualms about putting one driver in a supporting role if the points situation required it.

“At the end of the day we want to win the championship,” said Brawn. “Decisions may develop where one driver has to be given extra support for the championship but we won’t do that until the situation arises.

“Until then it is a completely open competition and I don’t want one driver to dominate the other.”

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn believes being paired with Michael Schumacher will help Nico Rosberg will develop into a potential champion.

With Schumacher having traditionally taken precedence over his team-mates, the issue of driver equality has been much discussed since it was confirmed that the seven times champion would come out of retirement to join Rosberg in the Mercedes GP line-up.

Brawn has been adamant that Rosberg would not be a subservient number two, and revealed that Mercedes wants to build its longer-term future around the younger German.

“We signed Nico first and have tried to sign Nico for several years,” Brawn told the official Formula 1 website. “We had strong discussions with him two years ago.

“We see Nico as a great talent, but it needs finishing and maturing. He has not won a race yet, although he came very close, and I think it is a wonderful partnership between him and Michael. They work well together and I see Michael helping Nico develop his career.

“Michael has come out of retirement but we have to accept that there will come a day when he has to stop forever and then we will have Nico.

“They must both try the hardest to beat each other but if it is done with the right spirit, with the right approach, then both will gain enormously. I view it as a very exciting partnership and I am glad Nico is part of it.”

Brawn insisted that there had never been any intention for Schumacher to become the dominant driver when they worked together at Benetton and Ferrari.

“First of all I never wanted Michael to dominate. Michael dominated because he was the best,” he said. “There was never a structure that enabled him to dominate. He dominated because he was the fastest and most consistent driver. So we will have to see how the season develops.

“It is not good having one driver dominate a team because that means the other driver is not performing as he should. I don’t want Michael to dominate. I want them both to compete very strongly and both to win races.”

But he acknowledged that Mercedes would have no qualms about putting one driver in a supporting role if the points situation required it.

“At the end of the day we want to win the championship,” said Brawn. “Decisions may develop where one driver has to be given extra support for the championship but we won’t do that until the situation arises.

“Until then it is a completely open competition and I don’t want one driver to dominate the other.”

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.

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.

Former Formula 1 driver and FIA GT2 champion Gianmaria Bruni is to contest the full American Le Mans Series for the first time after joining Jamie Melo in the Risi Ferrari line-up.

Bruni has contested several events with Risi over the past two years and was part of the team’s GT2-winning squad at the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours. His main focus since switching from single seaters to sportscars has been on FIA GT and the Le Mans Series with the AF Corse and Virgo/JMW teams, but he will now replace Pierre Kaffer as Melo’s full-time partner in the ALMS.

Team boss Giuseppe Risi was delighted to unite two of the most successful Ferrari GT drivers of the modern era in his team.

“I’m delighted to be able to secure two such talented drivers and, together with Ferrari SpA, we have just one aim in mind: to reclaim the American Le Mans Series championship titles,” said Risi. “Jaime is very much part of the Risi family, and we are sure that Gianmaria’s extremely successful couple of seasons in Europe will transfer to the United States.

“This will be our fifth and final season with the F430 GT and, while we are all very much looking forward to the introduction of the new Ferrari 458 in the future, we want to close this particular chapter of the 430 book with style; by winning.”

Risi won the 2007 ALMS GT2 title with Melo and Mika Salo, but has lost out to the Flying Lizard Porsche team for the past two seasons.

Allan McNish has admitted he is disappointed that Audi will not be racing at this season’s Sebring 12 Hours, an event it has won for nine of the last ten years.

Audi did not mention Sebring when it announced its 2010 programme last month as it did not feel it had time to convert its R15 to the revised Le Mans regulations ready for the mid-March race. A bid to run an interim car in the American Le Mans opener was vetoed by main rival Peugeot just before Christmas.

“Sebring has historically been the Le Mans preparation for us,” said McNish on stage at AUTOSPORT International.

“Even though it is part of the ALMS, even when we were doing the full championship over there, it was a separate crew, separate team, of engineers, mechanics who ran Sebring because it was linked to Le Mans and it was our Le Mans preparation.

“This year because of the late change of the ACO regulations, we basically had to dump quite a lot of our development work and start again, which means the car is not going to be ready in time for that particular race. We had the option to run an interim car, but one of the competitors basically did not agree to that, so we are not in a position to do anything about it.

“It is disappointing because I think the 180,000 fans who front up at Sebring got a titanic battle in the last few years and would have had again in 2010.”

Audi is still expected to hold an endurance test at Sebring even though it will not contest the race itself.

Although Audi beat Peugeot at Sebring last year, the French squad turned the tables in the Le Mans 24 Hours and ended Audi’s winning streak. But McNish says his team has learned from that loss and will be harder to beat in 2010.

“It’s actually quite an exciting programme this year because we obviously have the fourth year of the direct head-to-head banging session with our French friends,” he said.

“We have an updated car and we’ve understood quite a lot of the reasons that we missed it all at Le Mans. That loss has fired everybody up quite considerably. It has been quite a good thing for everybody, a shake and reminder.”

As well as Le Mans, Audi will also contest the new Intercontinental Cup, which kicks off with the AUTOSPORT 1000km at Silverstone, and the Spa round of the Le Mans Series.

Highcroft Racing team boss Duncan Dayton remains confident that the American Le Mans Series has a bright future despite the departure of several major teams in recent years.

The championship lost both Audi and Porsche after 2008, and at the end of last season the Fernandez Acura team also closed its doors. Fellow Acura squad de Ferran Motorsports’ future is in severe doubt too – with the team set to switch to the IndyCar Series if it continues racing at all.

But Dayton, whose team won the 2009 title with David Brabham and Scott Sharp, says the quality of the field remains high and is optimistic that the reduced grid size will be shortlived.

“It’s a little bit unfortunate given the economy and the way the larger manufacturers are starting to pull back a bit, but you still have to remember the value of a lot of the people that are racing,” said Dayton on stage at AUTOSPORT International. “The teams, drivers and cars that are there are top calibre so the competition is very intense.

“I think 2010 will be a bit of a rollthrough year with new teams and manufacturers interested in coming for 2011. With IndyCar holding off its new package for 2012 there should be a lot of enthusiasm for ALMS in 2011.”

The ALMS is tweaking its format this year and combining LMP1 and LMP2 into a single category. The moribund GT1 category is also being merged with GT2, with the one-make class for GT3 Porsches being retained along with a new LMP Challenge division for Formula Le Mans cars.

Daytona believes the changes are the right way forward for the series.

“I’ve always advocated a two-class system and with the lower numbers of cars it makes more sense for 2010,” he said. “For the fans I think it’s better to merge the classes because I think even some knowledgeable people would struggle to tell the different between a P1 and P2 driving past.

“We’ve won outright with a P2 car and there is a history of them being stronger than the P1 cars at some of the twistier tracks, so it can be very confusing for some fans.”

Highcroft will use a modified version of Acura’s LMP2 car for its title defence this year. Ex-de Ferran driver Simon Pagenaud will partner Brabham, with Marino Franchitti moving from Dyson to join the team at long distance events.

Felipe Massa has welcomed his former team-mate Michael Schumacher’s decision to return to Formula 1 and says he has no problem with the German leaving Ferrari in order to race again with Mercedes.

Schumacher and Massa became close friends when the Brazilian was a Ferrari test driver in the early 2000s and then joined Schumacher in the race team for 2006. Massa believes Schumacher retired too soon, and that his subsequent consultancy role with Ferrari proved he could not let racing go.

“I think that when he ended his perfect career, he stopped at a difficult moment,” said Massa. “It’s always difficult to think about stopping when you’re fighting for a championship up to the last race.

“He had an incredible career, but he never stopped racing in reality – he never stayed home without racing and without doing what he had been doing in the past. So in the end he decided to return. It’s his decision, and in his place if I had wanted to race because something was missing in my life, maybe I would have taken the same decision.”

While some Ferrari fans have criticised Schumacher for ending his 14-year association with the team to join Mercedes, Massa has no qualms about the move – pointing out that Ferrari’s race team was already full.

“Thinking about all that has happened with Michael and Ferrari, of course it’s a bit strange now to see Michael racing in another team,” said Massa.

“However it is also true that Ferrari already had two drivers as they had also reached an agreement with Fernando [Alonso] and I had a contract. So it was difficult for him to return with Ferrari.

“We also have to look forward and continue with our lives, and of course now he’s back on the racetrack and that’s simply what happened.”

Schumacher originally considered a comeback when invited to substitute for Massa following his Hungaroring accident.

A neck injury prevented that return, and Massa’s eventual replacements Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella then struggled with the 2009 Ferrari and failed to score. Massa reckons Schumacher would also have had a tough time.

“It was not an easy car, especially as they drove the car at a moment when we were really focusing on the 2010 car and other teams had come in with new developments and were improving,” said Massa.

“So it was not the best possible time for them to take my place. It was not easy for them to tackle races with this car. I think that Michael would have also had some problems.”

Massa added that while Schumacher remained a close friend off-track, he would treat him the same as any other rival when they battled during grands prix.

“It was extremely important to me to be his team-mate – it helped me to grow, to learn, to reach a higher level as a driver,” he said. “But we are racing one against the other – so it could be Michael, it could be [Lewis] Hamilton, it could be [Jenson] Button, it could be any other driver.

“In races it is a competition. Outside the racetrack our friendship is going to continue.”