King, Sturm to Spearhead Second Proton LMGT3 Entry

Harry King and Joel Sturm will spearhead the driver lineup for the No. 77 Proton Competition Porsche in this year’s European Le Mans Series.

Porsche-contracted drivers King and Sturm will take it in turns to partner Bronze-rated ‘Bankcy’ and Silver-rated Huub van Eijndhoven at the wheel of the Seven x Seven Racing-backed No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo for the six-round season.

King is scheduled to participate in four of the six rounds, beginning with next weekend’s 4 Hours of Barcelona opener, but will miss the both the second round at Paul Ricard in May and the fourth round at Spa in August owing to clashes with his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship commitments for the AO Racing squad.

For those races, Sturm is set to fill in alongside van Eijindhoven and ‘Bankcy’, who both drove alongside King at Proton in the Asian Le Mans Series last winter.

Porsche Supercup graduate van Eijindhoven joined the team for the Middle Eastern rounds in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, replacing Kiyoto Fujinami in the lineup.

All four Proton drivers are new to the ELMS, but King was scheduled to contest the series last year for CLX Pure Rxcing in the LMP2 class, only to drop out ahead of the start of the campaign amid a disagreement with Alex Malykhin.

The British driver instead embarked on a campaign of SUPER GT in Japan with the newly-formed Seven x Seven Racing team, finishing sixth in the GT300 standings with a win at Autopolis alongside Fujinami despite missing two races.

‘Bankcy’ (real name Hiroyuki Ogawa) steps up to the ELMS this year having raced in both Porsche Carrera Cup Japan and Middle East over the past two seasons.

Prior to the Asian Le Mans season, he gained GT3 experience in Super Taikyu, winning the ST-X class title last year with four wins from five starts.