Proton ‘Happy to Help’ Ford With Late Fanatec GT Program

Christian Ried described Proton Competition’s new program in Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS as “a stretch” alongside its efforts in other championships, but added that he’s happy to help Ford Performance after it was left without a presence in the series.

Proton was confirmed on Wednesday to be running a single Ford Mustang GT3, entered into the Pro class, in both Sprint and Endurance Cup.

The announcement came following Dinamic GT’s split with the Blue Oval, which had originally been chosen as the partner team for the European effort.

As a result, Proton will make its first appearance in Fanatec GT, a program that will add to already existing commitments in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where the team runs both Fords and Porsche 963s.

Additionally, the team also competes in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 and LMGT3 classes as well as Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup and Carrera Cup Deutschland, although the latter two series are run in partnership with Huber Racing.

Ried described the prospect of running the Mustang GT3 in three different championships simultaneously as “a stretch,” but agreed to it because of the good relationship between team and manufacturer.

“They asked us in Abu Dhabi if we can help,” Ried told Sportscar365.

“I said, ‘We have to see.’ For sure it’s very late and not that easy but at the end as we race with them WEC and IMSA and we like the program, it’s a good partnership, so we’re trying to help.”

Ford Performance global sports car manager Kevin Groot praised Ried, saying the American manufacturer is “very fortunate” to be able to rely on Proton at such late notice.

“We really want to be on that grid,” Groot told Sportscar365.

“We think it’s very important, the world program. With the situation as it was, we asked Chris if he could help us and he said he would. So we’re very fortunate again to be able to do that.”

Groot described Proton as a “great partner” for the Mustang GT3 effort, which is going into its second race in this weekend’s Qatar 1812km.

“We’ve been testing with them all through Europe,” he said. “So we’ve been building that relationship for a while.

“It’s been really good. They work very hard. We’ve got a lot of things we still are catching up on the car so still trying to find our rhythm with that, but Christian seems to be fantastic, for sure.”

No word has been given on who will pilot the sole Mustang GT3 in Sprint and Endurance Cup this year, although Ried and Groot both indicated that meetings would take place in Qatar this weekend.

Before its relationship with Ford ended, Dinamic announced in January that factory drivers Frederic Vervisch, Christopher Mies and Dennis Olsen would form the team’s Pro class lineup, while Ben Barker had been enlisted for the Bronze Cup crew.

Olsen and Barker are both competing with Proton as part of the team’s LMGT3 lineup in Qatar.

Groot would not get into specifics regarding the driver lineup for Proton’s Fanatec GT effort, although he said ‘not to expect any surprises’ when it comes to the composition of the crew.

He also declined to comment on the reasons of the Dinamic partnership coming to an end.

John Dagys contributed to this report