WTCC: Jaap van Lagen will replace James Thompson at Nordschleife

Russian WTCC team Lada Sport Rosneft confirmed that Dutch driver Jaap Van Lagen will replace James Thompson for next championship race at Nurburing Nordschleife, scheduled for May 15-16th.

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Thompson missed races at Hungaroring due to health problems, and Lada’s boss Viktor Shapovalov called 38-years old Dutchman to test Vesta WTCC at Hungarian track, alongside regular driver Rob Huff and Argentinian Super TC2000 champion Nestor Girolami. After successfull test, Shapovalov decided to give a seat to Van Lagen.

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Racing at Nurburgring Nordschleife won’t be first time for Van Lagen in Russian team, cause he drove complete 2009 WTCC season for Lada Sport at the wheel of Lada Priora. In the meantime Van Lagen become 2011 Dutch Supercar Challenge champion and competed in some high profile series (Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, ADAC GT Masters, Blancpain GT Series).

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This season he compete for Lecher Racing in Porsche Carrera Cup Germany and for Black Falcon in VLN. It’s interesting that same weekend Van Lagen will race at 24 Hours of Nurburgring with Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 and WTCC with Lada Vesta.