Yahoo Autos Mercedes-AMG Could Have a Big Presence in U.S. Sports Car Racing Next Year
Following a 1-2-3-4 victory with the AMG GT3 at this year's Nürbugring 24 Hours, Mercedes-AMG is riding a bit of a competition high and it's looking to bring some of its success to the U.S. Recent reports indicate that the company is trying to bring its AMG GT3 race car to IMSA WeatherTech's GTD class, and provide engines for cars in the newly created Daytona Prototype International (DPi) class.
Over at Racer, Marshall Pruett reports that Mercedes-AMG is shopping a Riley/Multimatic P2 chassis, equipped with the 6.2-liter V8 used in the AMG GT3, to various customers. It doesn't seem as though AMG will operate its own team, instead opting to provide hardware and support to privateer teams.
Riley/Multimatic is also said to be developing a DPi car for Mazda, though as Pruett notes, this car's existence has yet to be confirmed. If Mercedes-AMG were to find customers, its DPi car wouldn't likely debut until halfway through the season next year. DPi is a brand-new class, and very few entrants (if any) are expected at next year's Daytona 24 Hours.
A separate report from Sportscar365 says that Mercedes-AMG is also looking for customers for its AMG GT3 race car, which currently races in the Blancplain GT Series. As is the case with its rumored DPi, Mercedes-AMG won't operate a full factory works team, but will offer significant support to customer teams.
"We're in touch with several teams and we hope to have a few cars on the grid next season," said AMG Customer Sports Coordinator Thomas Jaeger, in an interview with Sportscar365. The AMG GT3 would run in the Gran Turismo Daytona (GTD) class, which sits below the Gran Turismo LeMans (GTLM) class. The GT3 would compete against Ferrari 488s, Porsche 911 RSRs, and others in the GTD class.
Things seem very much up in the air right now, but it looks like we could be seeing a lot more from Mercedes-AMG in IMSA next year. American sports car racing could get very interesting in 2017.
