Emil Frey Racing has announced the driver line-up for its second self-developed Jaguar XKR GT3 car. Jonathan Hirschi (who’s driven the team’s single entry on occasion previously) will be joined by defending race winner Markus Palttala and ex-F1 man Christian Klien in the car for the Spa 24 Hours at the end of July.
The planned debut of the second Swiss machine at next week’s Paul Ricard six-hour race has however been postponed, so Spa will now be its first competitive mileage. In the first car, Lorenz Frey, Stephane Ortelli and Alberto Costa will drive as normal at Paul Ricard.
Technical director Jurgen Flach said: “We’re thrilled to extend our driver line-up with such prominent additions. With that, we’ll have two irons in the fire from the next race onwards, the 24 Hours at Spa-Francorchamps. The reconstructed racing car and additional driving team are ready to take on the rollout shortly. But to start off with, our main aim is to grab as many points as possible and a good finish in France.”
Elsewhere, Peter Kox’s daughter Stephane has been added to the line-up of the Scuderia Praha Ferrari for Paul Ricard, joining Matteo Malucelli and Jiri Pisarik. Ivo Horn, team principal, said: “We tested Stéphane over two days at Paul Ricard and she did a very good job, considering limited experience with GT3 cars. She improved within each run, did strong, also set consistent lap times and her feedback was very good. We are happy to give her a debut chance in the Blancpain GT Series and we are confident that she will do the job.”
The Kaspersky Motorsport Ferrari squad has also shuffled its drivers for Ricard: Belgian Stephane Lemeret will now race alongside Alexander Moiseev, with Gary Kondakov mantaining his association with the team, but instead contesting the Blancpain GT Sports Club from Paul Ricard onwards.
