James Nash moves to Blancpain Sprint Series with WRT Audi

The former World Touring Car Championship frontrunner, who made the switch to GT racing last season, will race an Audi R8 LMS ultra together with factory driver and 2014 team-mate Frank Stippler.

The decision to move to the BES was jointly made by Nash, who will also contest the British GT Championship with the UltraTek Lotus GT4 team this year, and WRT.

Nash, 29, said: "I've chosen to race in the sprint series in an attempt to gain more seat time because there are Qualifying and Main races each weekend."

WRT team boss Vincent Vosse added that the move would also allow him "to be more involved in the running of the car" and suggested that the combination of Nash and Stippler would be a competitive proposition in the BES this year.

"If James has the same speed he had at the end of last year, they will be frontrunners," he explained.

WRT and Nash are also working on plans for the Briton to race in the Spa 24 Hours BES round in which he finished third last season with Stippler and Christopher Mies.

Nash said that he was expecting "another challenging year" in 2015.

"Out of the seven venues in this year's BSS, I've only previously raced at Brands Hatch and the Algarve so I'll be learning many new tracks again," he continued.

"I've only had five races in the Audi R8 LMS ultra: I was generally pleased with what I achieved last year but still have a lot to learn about the car."

WRT has yet to confirm its full plans for the BES and the BSS, which are linked under the title of the Blancpain GT Series.

The team is aiming to run four R8s in the sprint series and three or four in the enduros.