Former Champ Car driver Tristan Gommendy will race for the Eurasia Motorsport LMP2 squad in next year’s European Le Mans Series.

Eurasia has opted for a continued campaign in the ELMS over a graduation to the World Endurance Championship and will field its new ORECA-Nissan 05 coupe for Gommendy and team regulars Kevin Pu Jun Jin and Nick de Bruijn.

Frenchman Gommendy moves into the full-time Eurasia lineup after a one-off with the team in the Asian Le Mans Series opener at Fuji in October aboard its open-top ORECA.

“While we seriously considered entering WEC next year, we came to the conclusion it was better to concentrate on the European series where our driver combination should be competitive and look to 2017 to move up to WEC,” team boss Mark Goddard said. “We feel with Tristan on board we have a very strong driver line-up that will give us a chance of being competitive in the ELMS.”

Goddard stressed that the team would be making an entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours next year and that, if successful, it would also contest the Spa WEC round in May by way of a warm-up. The team could also receive an entry for Le Mans should it win the title in the Asian LMS.

Eurasia finished sixth in the 2015 ELMS P2 points, while Gommendy ended up fourth after contesting four of the five rounds in a TDS Racing ORECA 05 before being replaced for the series finale.