The fan-funded scheme is to open voting among its members that will enable a protege to compete in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, the new LMGT3 division in the World Endurance Championship, or the headline LMP2 class of the ELMS, in which Habsburg was triumphant last season.
This covers the three main bases of the current motorsport landscape – single-seaters, GT and sports-prototypes.
“I’m a lucky guy,” said Habsburg, who first launched Rebel Team at the Monza round of the WEC last July.
“I’m a professional racing driver who hasn’t had to struggle like crazy to get to where I wanted to in my career in the way that many drivers do.
“Their problem is almost always funding – or the lack of it – because young drivers almost always have to pay big money for their race drives, and very few of them are lucky enough to have family or backers with pockets deep enough.
“As a result, many seriously talented young drivers have no option other than to give up. I’ve seen it many times. It is very sad.”
The 26-year-old Arch Duke, heir apparent to the head of the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorraine, is to roll out a Rebel Team voting system next month whereby members of the public can decide on which series their driver will contest, with later votes to determine driver selection and car livery.
Source: Autosport