Picariello Joins Land Audi Effort for Sebring

Photo: Audi

Alessio Picariello will join Montaplast by Land Motorsport in next month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, completing the lineup in the team’s Audi R8 LMS.

The 2017 Audi R8 LMS Cup champion has been confirmed alongside Christopher Mies and Sheldon van der Linde in the GT Daytona class contender for the second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

It will mark Picariello’s U.S. racing debut, following two standout seasons of racing Audi GT3 machinery in Asia.

The 24-year-old Belgian was present at last month’s season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona as a guest of the team, where he saw their chances for GTD class honors fade away following IMSA’s first-ever in-race Balance of Performance penalty.

It relegated the Mies, Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde and Jeffrey Schmidt-driven entry to a 7th place finish in class.

Picariello Set for GT Masters Campaign

Picariello’s full-season focus, meanwhile, will be on ADAC GT Masters, having also been confirmed Wednesday in one of Land’s Audi entries in the highly competitive German-based GT3 championship.

He will team up with Mies in one car, with Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde confirmed in the second Land-entered Audi GT3.

The South African brothers formed part of the team’s lineup at Daytona, with 18-year-old Sheldon slated to complete the balance of the WeatherTech Championship season as its nominated Silver-rated driver.

Land, however, has yet to formally commit its lineup for the season due to several clashing weekends between the German-based GT3 championship.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John