PONOS Racing Enters Into United Autosports LMP2 Tie-Up

PONOS Racing has entered into a new partnership with United Autosports to run its Asian Le Mans Series program, which began in last weekend’s 4 Hours of Dubai.

The Japanese outfit made its first foray into LMP2 competition in last December’s opening round of the Asian Le Mans season at Sepang, having announced a tie-up with fellow SUPER GT team K2 R&D to field a solo Oreca 07 Gibson.

However, that alliance came to an end after a single weekend in which the No. 45 car shared by Kei Cozzolino, Marino Sato and Yorikatsu Tsujiko struggled.

For the remaining rounds in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, PONOS elected to join forces with United, which is fielding two cars under its own banner in the three-round series.

Cozzolino, who is also involved in the running of the team, explained that there was a pre-existing link with United through Sato, who raced for the team in the European Le Mans Series last year, as well as from a test outing at Silverstone last summer.

The agreement is for two years, including the 2026/27 Asian Le Mans season.

“In the future we would like to become more independent, but for the first year we realized that we needed to rely on a top team that has experience of running an LMP2 car, and in racing at a high level in ACO series,” Cozzolino told Sportscar365.

“United are taking care of the team management and engineering, but the mechanics are mostly still PONOS, and we also have two of our engineers incorporated in the team as an apprenticeship, so it’s a hybrid collaboration.

“They are a top team, [United co-owner] Richard Dean has been great with us, so we are really happy. It has been a pleasure working with them so far.”

The No. 45 car scored a best finish of 11th across the two Dubai races, but Cozzolino is optimistic of a stronger showing in this weekend’s season-closing Abu Dhabi round.

“The results weren’t great,” said Cozzolino. “Dubai is a very bumpy track, and the LMP2 car is very stiff, so we struggled a lot for mechanical grip.

“Single-lap pace was ok, and Tsujiko-san did a good lap in qualifying, but over a double stint, we were struggling massively. But Yas Marina is much smoother with the F1-grade tarmac, so I think we will be able to bring out more of our potential.

“I’m really confident we can do better this weekend. I’m still learning the car, but if we could finish in the top five, that would be a mega result.”