Mercedes will return to the Le Mans 24 Hours for the primary time since 1999 as a part of a World Endurance Championship marketing campaign with the Iron Lynx crew.
The German producer will enter the WEC for the primary time within the LMGT3 class with the profitable Mercedes-AMG GT3, a winner of the 24-hour classics at Spa and Nurburgring.
That can give Mercedes a spot on the Le Mans grid, 26 years after its final entry with the CLR LM-GTP racer.
That was solely Mercedes’s third assault on the French enduro since its 1989 victory with the manufacturing unit Sauber crew and ended on Saturday night when Peter Dumbreck crashed out within the third aerial accident for the crew over the Le Mans assembly.
#6 AMG Mercedes CLR LMGTP: Bernd Schneider, Pedro Lamy, Franck Lagorce
Photograph by: John Brooks
Iron Lynx is forging a partnership with Mercedes after representing Lamborghini in LMGT3 in 2024, the primary season of the brand new class, in addition to in Hypercar with the Italian producer’s SC63 LMDh prototype.
Mercedes is about to turn into the tenth producer at school and can have two Iron Lynx-run automobiles within the subject, consistent with sequence guidelines.
Iron Lynx has introduced Matteo Cressoni, who switches over from Lamborghini’s manufacturing unit roster, and Claudio Schiavoni, a associate within the crew, as the primary drivers of the 2 Mercs.
Head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Christoph Sagemuller mentioned on Wednesady’s announcement: “It is no secret that we have been very eager for a while to carry the Three-pointed Star again to Le Mans.
“The 2025 season with the FIA WEC entry is the suitable second – we’re returning to La Sarthe after 26 years!
“The primary FIA WEC season with LMGT3 automobiles has already been extraordinarily fascinating and we wish to carry much more pleasure to the sector in future.”
He added the “skilled Iron Lynx crew is the suitable pairing” for its WEC entry.
Iron Lynx crew principal and CEO Andrea Piccini mentioned: “We’re extraordinarily proud to welcome Mercedes-AMG as a associate. Along with being an incredible model, they’re extremely motivated, decided, and hungry for achievement.”
Stephen Wendl, head of buyer racing at Mercedes-AMG, thanked the FIA and the Car Membership de l’Ouest for his or her cooperation in permitting Mercedes into LMGT3 on the second time of asking.
The model tried to achieve an entry for the inaugural 12 months of LMGT3. however misplaced out when the FIA and the ACO allowed in solely 9 producers.
An enlargement of the WEC grid from this 12 months’s 37 to automobiles to doubtlessly as many as 40 and fewer than anticipated entries in Hypercar has made house for Mercedes.
The importance of the announcement, which has come forward of the complete reveal of the 2025 WEC grid after entries closed on 18 November, on Iron Lynx’s relationship with Lamborghini will not be fully clear.
Lamborghini’s LMDh programme is below evaluation, with marque chief technical officer Rouven Mohr revealing that each one choices are attainable.
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He defined that the brand new rule demanding that Lamborghini run two SC63s in WEC was proving problematical for causes of useful resource, each monetary and technical.
It seems that the probably choice is that the Italian producer will think about GTP within the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America, its greatest market, and go away the WEC’s Hypercar class.
Iron Lynx made no reference to Lamborghini in its announcement made concurrently the assertion from Mercedes.
Mercedes is planning a brand new GT3 automobile to switch the long-serving present automobile after bringing improvement for the category in-house reasonably than utilizing long-term associate HWA.
