Nissan GT Academy Team RJN has announced changes to its line-ups for the Blancpain Endurance Series round at Paul Ricard and Spa-Francorchamps. In order to increase the experience and knowledge of the newest GT Academy graduates Alex Buncombe and Lucas Ordonez have been separated and will now be racing against each other in different cars.
As of this weekend Lucas Ordonez will be racing in the number 35 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 with Wolfgang Reip and Peter Pyzera, while his former co-driver Alex Buncombe will share the number 32 GT-R with Mark Shulzhitskiy and Steve Doherty.
“This is a driver development programme,” explained Nissan’s Darren Cox. “Championships are a secondary consideration; we’re here to get the absolute best out of the talent we discovered through GT Academy. We realise that changing line-ups mid-season will have a negative effect on points tables but we are confident we will produce better racing drivers this way.”
“We’re also aware of rumblings in the paddock that our number 35 line-up was too strong,” added Nissan GT Academy Team RJN team boss Bob Neville. “We’re not here to upset the competition – in fact we are one of the longest-standing supporters of SRO championships – so we have moved it around so each standard Blancpain line up will consist of one silver and two bronze drivers, below the required maximum driver line up regulations. We can’t make it any fairer than that.”
Nissan also announced its driver line-ups for next month’s Total 24 Hours of Spa. Joining Lucas Ordonez, Wolfgang Reip and Peter Pyzera will be Jann Mardenborough. Mardenborough will also race in the British F3 races at Spa the same weekend.
Alex Buncombe’s brother Chris will join the number 32 car at Spa. The Buncombe brothers will race with Shulzhitskiy and Doherty at Spa-Francorchamps.
