Lexus has dropped plans to compete in this year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with their current RC F GT3 race car, and will instead introduce two RC F teams in next year’s competition — from The Slipstream Network:
Mark Egger, Lexus Motorsports Manager, revealed that the brand’s focus would turn to 2017 in an effort to ensure the best-developed race car to represent the decorated brand.
“We’re making the strategic and competitive decision to focus our efforts on the 2017 vehicles, next season with a two-car effort, so we can represent the brand in a way we deem appropriate,” Lexus said in a statement on Monday. The interim 2016 car is still being used for data collection with F Performance racing as the proper 2017 GT3 competitor continues its development on track with the global team of TRD and TMG.
The current expectation is the two Lexus RC F GT3 cars will debut at the 2017 Rolex 24 at Daytona, with one of the teams being the F Performance Racing group. There is no announcement about drivers for the second team.
(Lexus has also backed away from offering their RC F GT3 to private racing teams for the time being, and will revisit the plan after more extensive testing of the new race car.)
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