British F3 race winner Wayne Boyd returning to racing in ELMS LMP3
Ex-British Formula 3 Championship driver Wayne Boyd will contest his first full season of racing in five years, with an assault on the European Le Mans Series with United Autosports
The 25-year-old North Irishman, who last undertook a full championship in the 2011 US Formula 2000 series, will race one of two United Ligier-Nissan JSP3s in the LMP3 class of the ELMS.
A race winner in British F3 in his season with T-Sport in 2009, Boyd will share the car in the six-round series with team returnees Mark Patterson and Matt Bell.
Anglo-American United team boss Richard Dean explained that he had always been a fan of Boyd's and wanted to give him a chance to resurrect his career.
"Wayne has obviously got bags of natural talent and we had a little bit of funding for the third seat, so rather than take one of the usual suspects or go for a safe bet, I decided to give him a chance," Dean told Autosport.
Dean revealed that Boyd had impressed the team during a two-day test in the JSP3 at Magny-Cours last month and again at Donington Park in dry conditions on Thursday.
"We took him to Magny-Cours with no deal in place and he showed great ability in the car and handled himself very well," he continued.
"I wanted to give him some dry laps, which is why we went to Donington yesterday.
"It was really a formality and we signed the deal straight afterwards."
Boyd has competed sporadically since finishing third in USF2000 with Belardi Auto Racing and has raced only in the end-of-season Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy over the past three years, taking a victory apiece in the FF1600 blue-ribands in 2015 and '14 respectively.
The second United Ligier will be raced by Alex Brundle, Mike Guasch - a regular in the Prototype Challenge class in the USA - and Christian England, another ex-F3 racer making a return to the cockpit.
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