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Ram Racing to return to competition in Dubai 24 Hours

The British Ram Racing squad, European Le Mans Series GTE champion team in 2013, will end a six-month absence from competition to take part in next month's Dubai 24 Hours

Silverstone-based Ram, which claimed the ELMS title in 2013 with Johnny Mowlem and Matt Griffin, will field a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 in the Middle East enduro on January 9/10 for Mercedes factory driver Thomas Jager, Britons Adam Chistodoulou and Tom Onslow-Cole, and team owner Cheerag Arya.

The race marks Ram's first competitive outing since last year's Le Mans 24 Hours, after which it called time on its participation in the World Endurance Championship with a pair of Ferrari 458 Italias.

Team boss Dan Shufflebottom stressed that the Dubai assault remained a one-off for the present.

"Dubai is the only race in the plan at the moment, but we do have hopes of getting the budget together to do the rest of the 24H-Series [which now has championship status and has increased to six rounds]," he said.

"The series is attractive to gentlemen drivers, and we're hoping for a good result in Dubai that will enable us to put something together for the remainder of the season.

"We don't necessarily need all paying drivers, but we are not going to return to the situation where we run an all-professional line-up."

Ram has swapped from the GT3-spec Ferrari that it raced in the event in 2013-14, the only race that Dubai-based Arya has contested with the team, to the Mercedes for reasons of "cost and competitiveness", according to Shufflebottom.

The car was given a shakedown at Silverstone in November (pictured) before its shipment to Dubai and a further test in the run-up to Christmas.

Leading entries for the Dubai 24 Hours include two Mercedes fielded by 2012 and '13 winner Black Falcon, with a roster of drivers including Bernd Schneider, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Yelmer Buurman and Oliver Webb, and a Porsche 911 GT3-R from 2014 winner Stadler Motorsport.

The Triple Eight BMW squad and the KPM Motorsport Aston Martin team, whose V12 Vantage GT3 has a line-up including Stefan Mucke and Jonny Adam.

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