24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 winners JOTA Sport will be running the car, a new Nissan powered ORECA 05, and the Russian will be joined in the cockpit by Germany’s René Rast and French driver Nathanaël Berthon.

Q: So what has changed over the winter?

“We’ve built a new project with JOTA Sport, which is more complicated because we have gone from one car to two cars, one in the WEC and one in ELMS, and the one we are running in the WEC is the new ORECA 05.  We’ve put everything together and now we start to work well together.  We will push hard to retain the LMP2 title in 2016 and if we avoid mistakes we can be very competitive.”

Q: How are you getting along with your new teammates?

“I have two new teammates for this season with René Rast and Nathanaël Berthon. It is good to have René because he is already a god in GT racing so we want to take a god in prototypes.  Nathanael is a quick driver with experience in LMP2.  We are already working well together.”  

Q: This year a new event has been added to the calendar in Mexico.  Are you looking forward to this event?

“The new event in Mexico looks great.  I raced with Ricardo Gonzalez last year; he is a good teammate and I am happy he was able to organise this event in his home country.  The FIA World Endurance Championship is the best championship now; you have a lot of people coming to the events.  Even here at The Prologue we have a lot of spectators.  The WEC is really growing so fast and now it is the best championship in the world.”

Q: LMP2 looks very strong this year.  How difficult will it be to retain your 2015 title?

“The competition in LMP2 will be very hard but very nice.  All of the cars on the entry list can challenge for the win so we will have a very nice competition this year.  We will try to do our best for Russia and for G-Drive and if we can finish without troubles then we can fight for the win.”