Garage 59 returns to British GT with full-season GT3 entries
Leading GT World Challenge Europe outfit Garage 59 will return to the British GT championship with its first full-time GT3 programme in 2023 as it enters two McLaren 720S Evos.
Andrew Kirkaldy's team won the 2016 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup outright with the McLaren 650S GT3 and returned to the marque in 2022 to run its 720S after three years with Aston Martin.
The season yielded the Pro Am title in the GTWCE Sprint Cup with Dean Macdonald and Miguel Ramos, whose results in the Endurance Cup made him the overall GTWCE Pro Am champion, while the team also finished a close second on its sole British GT outing at the Silverstone 500 with Alexander West and factory McLaren racer Marvin Kirchhofer.
West and Kirchhofer will now contest the full British GT season in the upgraded evo-spec McLaren GT3, with a second car run under the Sky Tempesta banner for series race winner Kevin Tse and Chris Froggatt.
It marks the first full-season campaign in the UK for the Brackley squad since 2017, when it ran two McLaren 570S GT4s and took victory at Snetterton with Sandy Mitchell and Cairan Haggerty.
"British GT is a new challenge for me,” said Kirchhofer.
"It’s always exciting for a driver to get out on tracks that you are not familiar with and I will be doing a lot of that as I only know Silverstone and Brands Hatch.
"Alex has shown some very strong performances so I hope we can challenge for wins.
"I think we showed in the Silverstone 500 last year that we have the pace as we came very close to winning that race. We should have a good season!"
Alexander West / Marvin Kirchoefer - Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Garage 59 will also contest the full GTWCE Endurance season with a Pro class entry as part of a three-car attack, marking its first top class assault since it finished third in the 2021 Spa 24 Hours as a works Aston team fielding Maro Sorensen, Nicki Thiim and Ross Gunn.
Kirchhofer will share its Pro entry with Benjamin Goethe and Nicolai Kjærgaard, who will race together in the Sprint Cup.
Ramos meanwhile will enter the full season in the Bronze Cup alongside Henrique Chaves, with Louis Prette joining for Endurance Cup rounds, while Froggatt is joined by regular partners Jonathan Hui and Eddie Cheever Jr for an Endurance-only programme also in the Bronze Cup.
Meanwhile, British GT rival Barwell Motorsport has entered 2020 champion Rob Collard, 2021 champion Dennis Lind and two-time GT3 Pro Am champion Adam Balon in a Pro Am Cup GTWCE Endurance entry with its upgraded Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
It had previously announced Mitchell and Shaun Balfe will join Will Tregurtha and Mark Sansom in its two-car roster for British GT.
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