ACADEMY TO RUN MUSTANGS IN 2020
Long-time Aston squad to receive support from Multimatic to field Fords in British GT
Academy Motorsport will switch allegiance from Aston Martin to
Ford next year and run two cars in the British GT championship and GT4 European Series with support from car-builder Multimatic Motorsports.
The deal will mean Matt Nicoll-jones’s team becomes a Multimatic-approved agent for the Ford Mustang GT4 in Europe and confirms that Multimatic, which ran Seb Priaulx and
Scott Maxwell to second in the 2019 British GT4 drivers’ championship, will focus on supporting customer teams instead of returning with a team entered under its own name.
Nicoll-jones was the inaugural GT4 champion in
2008 and his team won the
GT4 teams’ championship in 2015, but endured a tough 2019 season with the new Aston Martin Vantage GT4. While fellow Aston outfit TF Sport secured the title, Academy’s two cars only registered one points finish, an eighth at Silverstone, while Will Moore and Alex Toth-jones were in position to win at Brands Hatch until Moore crashed at Druids.
“We are delighted to be representing Ford Performance and Multimatic in Europe,” said Nicoll-jones. “This is what we have aspired to since we started Academy Motorsport, 19 years ago.
“Our aspirations have always been to excel in GT racing and I believe that this partnership with Multimatic and association with Ford Performance will provide us with a truly competitive package. The product and support speaks for itself, with the results of the Mustangs this year alone convincing us that this was the right path.”
Multimatic chief technical officer, Larry Holt added: “It’s great to have the Academy Motorsport guys joining the Ford Performance family and we know they are the right people to continue the work we started in Europe with the Mustang GT4 in 2019.
The car has already proven itself in North America so it is good to see its continued success in Europe.”