The Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge series will play host to five McElrea Racing drivers for the 2021 season. After finishing fourth and fifth respectively in the 2019 Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge series, Ryan Suhle and Christian Pancione will be strong favourites for the 2021 Mobil Pro title.
“We are really looking forward to the 2021 Carrera Cup & Sprint Challenge championships,” commented team owner Andy McElrea. “For the first time in our 13-year history that we have the perfect number of customers for our business model, that is four cars in each championship, with businessman Richard Cowen also doing a partial Sprint Challenge Championship and (Christian) Pancho doing some selected rounds of the Carrera Cup Australia series in preparation for 2021.
“We all realise that we will need to be flexible with plans and logistics for 2021, as some disruptions are inevitable, but we love a challenge and are always prepared to adapt on the run.
“We started testing with our Sprint Challenge drivers already, while our first Carrera Cup test takes place in February.”
Pancione will also race select rounds of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia series as he affirms his intentions to ascend the Porsche Motorsport Pyramid.
Highly-rated, young GT racer, Bayley Hall, announced his plans to join the Queensland squad late last year, while Michael Hovey and Richard Cowen will be chasing victories in the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Pro-Am category.
Suhle, Pancione and Hall will all be looking to follow in the footsteps of former McElrea Racing graduates, Matt Campbell and Jaxon Evans, who progressed up from Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge to the premier Carrera Cup class. The pair went onto win both the Carrera Cup Championship (2016 – Matt Campbell and 2018 Jaxon Evans) as well as the Porsche Junior Shootout. Both McElrea Drivers have since gone onto forge top-level international careers with Porsche and its customer GT teams.
2021 McElrea Racing Driver line-up – Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge
#7 Ryan Suhle Latitude Coffee
#28 Bayley Hall TBC
#72 Michael Hovey The Triffid
#76 Christian Pancione VCM Performance
#2 Richard Cowen (partial championship)
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