NEW MCLAREN TO BE RUN BY BALFE IN BRITISH GT
Squad will be the first to race 720 sin theuk
Balfe Motorsport will be the first squad to run the new Mclaren 720S GT3 in the UK this year in the British GT Championship.
The Lincolnshire squad, which has already confirmed a return to GT4 with a 570S for Michael O’brien and Graham Johnson, will enter the new car for team co-owner Shaun Balfe and Mclaren Automotive factory driver Rob Bell.
Balfe and Bell won the 2017 International GT Open Pro-am championship together and combined for a part-season British GT effort last year in the previous generation Mclaren 650S GT3, which was interrupted by a big crash for Balfe at Rockingham.
Bell has been instrumental in developing the 720S GT3 together with Joe Osborne and Ben Barnicoat, but missed out on the car’s race debut at the Gulf 12 Hours in December due to the birth of his second child.
He told MN that Mclaren was “happy with what we’ve done so far” on the new car, with developments focused on improving the drivability over the 650S, but admits that racing it in British GT will be “unchartered territory”.
“It’s a new product and there will be some quirks to it that we don’t know about yet when we go racing, so that will be difficult for us, but that’s something that I enjoy because you’ve got to graft for your performance and that’s something we all thrive on,” he said.
Having won at the Donington Park finale in 2016, Bell said that he is looking forward to making two visits to the venue this season and starting afresh after a “frustrating” 2018 campaign.
“I’ve personally had a really good run with Balfe over the last couple of years, so we’ll take the challenge on,” he said.
MN understands Balfe will receive staffing support from Mclaren Automotive to help the team get up to speed with the new product.
Spanish squad Teo Martin Motorsport, a regular in GT Open, and Le Mans-winning outfit Team Goh, which plans to enter the car in the Super GT GT300 class, are the only other teams confirmed to run the new Mclaren car so far.