Current GT4 European Series Silver Teams’ leader Elite Motorsport has purchased a Ferrari 296 GT3 for the 2025 International GT Open Championship season.
It will mark the first time that the Norfolk-based team has raced a GT3 car, a Ferrari and contested the GT Open series.
The search for drivers is already underway, with the team currently evaluating Silver-graded drivers for the programme.
“This new venture marks another big step for our team,” Eddie Ives, the team manager at Elite Motorsport said.
“GT3 racing is the obvious route forward for our existing drivers from all of the different categories that we currently participate in.
“I want to thank our team sponsor, Entire Race Engineering, for playing a big part in making this project possible.
“Our intention with the Ferrari is to take ‘Silver’ graded drivers into the Pro Class of the International GT Open Championship in 2025 with a view of gearing up for GT World Challenge Europe the following year.
“The Ferrari 296 has clearly been a leading GT3 car around the world this year. Ferrari has been exceptionally welcoming to us and we are very proud to be associating ourselves with the world-famous Prancing Horse brand.”
Elite’s background is one-make Ginetta racing, since its formation at the end of 2011. It has won the Ginetta Junior Teams’ Championship three times (2018/19/22) and guided Tom Gamble (2017), Adam Smalley (2018), James Hedley (2019) and Tom Lebbon (2020) to the GJ Driver’s titles.
Additionally, Elite won the Ginetta GT5 Teams’ Championship in 2020/21/22 & Ginetta SuperCup championship with Harry King (2019) & Adam Smalley (2021).
In recent years, Elite has competed in the GB3 (from 2021) and GB4 (from 2022) single-seater Championships, winning numerous races in both, and over the past two years, expanded its activities to include successfully racing a McLaren Artura GT4 in the GT4 European and GT4 Winter Series, winning races outright in both championships.
Elite Motorsport with Entire Race Engineering drivers Tom Lebbon and Josh Rattican head the Silver Driver GT4 European Series rankings having scored six overall podiums, including two wins, three pole positions and two fastest race laps in the 10 races staged to date this season.
Image courtesy of Elite
