Button’s Team Rocket RJN squad to run Mclaren young drivers
Mclaren’s Driver Development Programme will return to British GT in 2021 after a year’s absence, with Team Rocket RJN taking over the running of its pair of
570S GT4S from Tolman Motorsport.
Christopher Tolman’s team had run the DDP operation since it began in 2018, finishing just 1.5 points shy of that year’s teams’ title and missing out by a single point in 2019. It also suffered near-misses in the drivers’ standings, with Michael O’brien and Charlie Fagg losing out to
Jack Mitchell by two points in 2018.
Mclaren Automotive’s head of customer racing Danny Buxton told Autosport that the marque had put out a tender for all its customer teams to run the DDP programme – which was put on hiatus last year when the pandemic hit – for 2021 and that “it just came down to a few tiny little things” in favour of the team co-owned by Bob Neville, Chris Buncombe and 2009 Formula 1 champion Jenson Button.
Buxton paid tribute to the “super job” done by Tolman and said he was excited by the “will to win” of the RJN team, which ran a Mclaren 720S GT3 for O’brien and James Baldwin in 2020 and last competed in GT4 in 2018 with a Nissan 370Z.
The four drivers set to represent the DDP in 2020 will remain in place this year, with Katie Milner joined by Harry Hayek, Michael Benyahia and Alain Valente.
Meanwhile, Ginetta GT4 Supercup racer and 2019 G40 Cup champion Chris Salkeld will step up to British GT this year, driving a Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT4.