Ram Racing Withdraws from Spa

Photo: Ram Racing

In an unexpected twist, Ram Racing has withdrawn from next weekend’s FIA WEC Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps due to budget issues.

The 2013 European Le Mans Series Champions, which stepped up to the world’s stage this year with a pair of Ferrari F458 Italias, have elected to skip the second round of the season in order to guarantee it’s presence at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“This decision has been taken after much soul-searching and a massive amount of number-crunching, and has come as a bit of a body blow to us at Ram Racing,” said team principal Dan Shufflebottom.

“We knew when we stepped up to the FIA WEC from the European Le Mans Series that the budgets required would be greatly increased, and we were fully confident that we’d meet our financial targets.

“However, we’re suffering an embarrassing, temporary shortfall and, in order to protect our participation at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and onwards in the FIA WEC, we have taken the difficult decision to not participate at Spa.

“I would like to apologize to our drivers, our suppliers, fans and to the FIA WEC organizers for placing them all in this unenviable position, but sometimes hard decisions have to be made in order to move things forward in a positive way.”

Matt Griffin and Alvaro Parente teamed for a sixth place finish in GTE-Pro at Silverstone, while the team’s GTE-Am sister entry driven by Johnny Mowlem, Ben Collins and Mark Patterson was fifth after what started off as a challenging weekend for the British squad.

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