Just days after he finished second in the LMP2 class in the latest round of the American Le Mans Series in Utah, Bathgate’s Marino Franchitti has confirmed he will contest this weekend’s Nurburgring 24-Hours.
The 30-year-old Scot will swap his Dyson-Mazda for an all-new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S car as part of the crack Mamerow Racing. And Franchitti is again looking forward to the race which combines the old Nordschleife and the shorter Nurburgring F1 circuit.
“The circuit’s a monster, all 25 kilometres of it, that’s more than 15 miles long each lap,” Franchitti, who led the race last year for 12 hours, said today on a flying, whistlestop visit to London enroute to Germany.
“I am delighted to be going back to the Nordschleife, it’s one of my favourite circuits and I love the challenge it always presents, and of course my thanks go to Dyson and Mazda for allowing me to accept the opportunity.”
Franchitti will be partnered by Chris Mamerow — who finished third in last year’s fastest one-make championship in the world, the German Porsche Carrera Cup — and Porsche works’ driver, Joerg Bergmeister.
The German, whose father Willi, owns a workshop and dealership where seven-time F1 world champ Michael Schumacher learned his trade as a car mechanic in the Eighties, won the GT2 category in the ALMS event in Salt Lake City at the weekend.
He also has no less than three ALMS GT2 Championships to his credit as well having won the GT2 category at the Le Mans 24 Hours and twice been runner-up.
“Mamerow Racing is a great team, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S is such a good car, and in Jeorg and Chris I have two fantastic team-mates,” the Scot, who will also use the race as part of his preparations for the Le Mans 24-Hours race in June, continued.
”Having led the race for 12 hours last year before my team-mate Richard Westbrook became the victim of a patch of oil dropped on the circuit early in the morning causing him to crash badly, it would be really nice to make up for it this year by getting a good result.”
The race, which attracts a massive crowd of around 220,000 spectators, gets underway on Saturday at 3pm (UK).
JM