Porsche Motorsport head Frank-Steffen Walliser has confirmed to DSC today that Gianmaria Bruni is set to replace Kevin Estre in the #912 Porsche RSR in the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from July.

Estre is already named as a full-season FIA WEC driver for the Porsche factory team and looks set to miss the IMSA round at CoTA too which clashes with the FIA WEC round at Spa, a key building block in the team’s preparations for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The terms of Bruni’s contract termination with Ferrari dictate that whilst he can officially join Porsche’s factory line-up on 1 June he cannot race for the marque until the following month.

That means that he was unavailable to be selected for a full-season FIA WEC place and would miss Le Mans.

Instead he will join fellow Porsche new boy Laurens Vanthoor in an eye-catching crew in the #912 from Watkins Glen on 2 July.