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News & Notes Roundup: 2.10

The latest news and notes from the world of sports car racing…

goodsmile_mercedes***Goodsmile Racing revealed the livery of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 it will enter in the Super GT series this season. The livery, designed around the anime character Hatsune Miku, will be similar to that used on the team’s BMWs and Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 in the recent past.

***Six Lexus RC Fs will compete in the GT500 class of the Super GT series in 2016. Italian Andrea Caldarelli will move from KeePer TOM’S to LeMans Wako’s, while Kiwi driver and 2015 Japanese F3 champion Nick Cassidy will join TOM’S. Ex-Lotus driver James Rossiter will remain with TOM’S, with former Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen rejoining SARD for a second season.

***AF Corse will represent Ferrari again in the International GT Open series. The Italian squad plans to run three cars in the championship and already confirmed two of its lineups. Claudio Sdanewitsch will share the wheel of one car with Stéphane Lémeret, while Marco Cioci and Alexander Moiseev will be racing another car.

***Former G-Drive Racing LMP2 driver Gustavo Yacaman is the first confirmed driver for Teo Martín Motorsport in GT Open. The 24-year-old Colombian will race the team’s BMW M6 GT3 in the European series. Back in 2003 Yacaman started his career in the Spanish Formula 3 championship, a series that was also run by GT Open organizer GT Sport.

***Corvette Racing tested at Sebring this week with its two Corvette C7.Rs, a couple weeks ahead of the IMSA series test later this month. Oliver Gavin had told Sportscar365 back in December he wouldn’t be able to run the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour due to this Sebring test being so close to Bathurst.

***A revised driver categorization list from the FIA came out last week with a handful of driver additions and changes, but nothing major. Notably, Elton Julian and Jonathan Summerton were both downgraded from Gold to Silver. The updated list can be found here

***The K-PAX Racing team completed a shakedown on Monday with new drivers Colin Thompson and Austin Cindric at Sonoma Raceway in the team’s McLaren 650S GT3s having their first runs in the car. Cindric arrived at Sonoma straight from Bathurst, where he competed with Erebus Motorsport in one of its Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s for the second straight year.

***A documentary feature film about five-time Daytona and three-time Le Mans winner Hurley Haywood and his history with the late Peter Gregg is currently in production. The documentary will give race fans a never-before-seen look at the personal lives of these two men, beginning with their meteoric rise to fame, and ending with the tragic death of Peter Gregg. The teaser trailer and a Kickstarter campaign can be found here.

***Team Parker Racing confirmed Seb Morris and Rick Parfitt Jr will be racing for the team in the British GT Championship. The Blancpain Endurance Series Am Cup champions will swap their Audi R8 LMS ultra for the Bentley Continental GT3 this season.

***This year’s British GT4 grid will welcome another new team and manufacturer following Ebor GT’s decision to enter a single Maserati GranTurismo MC for championship debutants Abbie Eaton and Marcus Hoggarth

***It remains to be seen whether IDEC Sport Racing will race its own Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 at Mugello. The French car ordered the last new SLS AMG GT3 from Mercedes, but the car has not yet been delivered. For Dubai the team rented another Mercedes and various options are being considered for Mugello.

***Browns Lane Racing’s Jaguar XKR-S GT3 will not race in the Hankook 12H Italy-Mugello next month. The car was withdrawn from the second round of the 24H Series to undergo modifications. The team is now expected to make its debut in the series at the Zandvoort round in May.

***Creventic has officially launched its new Touring Car Endurance Series powered by Hankook (TCES). The three-round touring cars only series will race at Silverstone and Slovakia Ring, before finishing at the brand-new Meppen circuit. The circuit is part of the so-called Funpark Meppen, a theme park built on the site of a former power station.

***The Automobile Club de l’Ouest will announce the list of entries for the inaugural Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup in mid-March. At this moment the organizers expect the entry to be between 15-18 cars. The GT3 Le Mans Cup will replace the GTC category in the European Le Mans Series.

***The Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race from Daytona will air this Saturday at 8:30 a.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.

Tony DiZinno contributed to this report

Marcel ten Caat (@marceltencaat) is a contributor to Sportscar365 and other publications including Autosport.nl.

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