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Keen and Minshaw to drive Barwell Lamborghini in British GT in 2016

Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw have become the first drivers to sign up to Barwell Motorsport's attack on the British GT Championship with a pair of new Lamborghini Huracan GT3s

Keen and Minshaw will share one of the team's two new Huracan GT3s, while talks continue with drivers for the second.

Both cars will receive factory support from Lamborghini Squadra Corse under Barwell's new three-year partnership with the Italian manufacturer.

The deal marks Keen and Minshaw's third full campaign together and their third different GT3 machine.

They have previously shared a Trackspeed Porsche 911 and the Barwell BMW Z4 GT3, in which they finished sixth in the championship last year - helping Barwell land the teams' title - despite a difficult start to the year.

Barwell boss Mark Lemmer said he was confident the pairing would adapt well to the new 5.2-litre V10 machines.

"We took all of our drivers to Vallelunga last month to try the Huracans out and everybody got on very well with them and I have no doubt that Phil and Jon will hit the ground running with the new car," he said.

"The Huracan is one of the first new-generation GT3 cars to come to British GT and as such it is built to be less circuit and 'Balance of Performance' [weighting] sensitive than the older GT3 cars.

"The designs now are more consistent and amateur driver-friendly. The Huracan is a very accessible car to drive. It has more power than the Z4 did and is more stable on the brakes.

"Jon and Phil have been in the hunt for the title every year they've done British GT, they just got tangled up in unfortunate situations at the start of this year which cost them.

"But the facts don't lie - they were on the podium in three of the last five races and will be title challengers next year."

SIMS RULED OUT, ATTARD IN DOUBT

Negotiations are ongoing over the second Huracan for both British GT and the Blancpain Endurance Series, but Lemmer did confirm that star driver Alexander Sims would not rejoin the team for 2016.

Sims, who is under contract with BMW, has multiple clashing dates with his planned VLN programme with the German marque, which rule him out of challenging for the British title.

It also leaves question marks over the future of former champion Marco Attard, who is yet to confirm his plans.

"It's a shame as we'd have loved to welcome Alexander and Marco back," Lemmer said.

"But there are at least three clashes for Alexander and it made any deal a non-starter, and Marco really wanted to have another crack at the championship with Alexander alongside him.

"We're talking with various parties and we'll undoubtedly have a very strong second pairing for the other Huracan."

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