Weekly Racing Roundup (1.15.18)

Photo: Ligier

News & Notes

***The annual Autosport International show took place at the NEC in Birmingham, UK, last week. While the launch of the Ginetta G6o-LT-P1 was the main sports car news from the event, several other announcements were made. Ligier UK had a large display (pictured above) with several cars on show including its new JS P4, a JS P217 Gibson competing at the Rolex 24 at Daytona with United Autosports, and a handful of Onroak’s historic cars including the Pescarolo LMP1 and Morgan LMP2.

***The JS P4 is designed to give drivers an entry-level introduction to prototype racing and fits between LMP3 and CN cars. It will be eligible to compete in series including VdeV and the 24H Proto Series. 

***Honda has announced its Super GT GT500 lineups which include 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button. The 37-year-old will partner Naoki Yamamoto in the Team Kunimitsu Honda NSX-GT. The remaining four cars will be driven by Tomoki Nojiri, Takuya Izawa, Hideki Mutoh, Daisuke Nakajima, Koudai Tsukakoshi, Takashi Kogure, Bertrand Baguette and Kosuke Matsuura.

***UltraTek Racing Team RJN will return to the British GT Championship this season, again entering a pair of Nissan 370Z GT4s. 2013 FIA WEC LMP2 champion Martin Plowman will drive alongside actor Kelvin Fletcher while the team’s second driver pairing will be announced in the coming weeks. Further British GT4 news was revealed at Autosport International, with the launch of the Jaguar F-TYPE SVR GT4 and Invictus Games Racing.

***CD Sport is the first team to confirm a Pro-Am pairing for GT4 France, which has been renamed from the GT4 European Series Southern Cup. The team will enter two Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MRs with 2017 series champion Mike Parisy joining Christophe Lapierre in the first entry.

***Cool Racing will also run a pair of Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MRs in the series but in the Am category. Father and son pairing Laurent and Clement Dub will drive the first entry while Cyril Saleilles will race alongside a currently unconfirmed driver in the second Porsche. The team hasn’t ruled out running a third car.

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.