Updates on progress with the much-delayed Lexus RC-F GT3 programme have been few and far between but a little digging around with sources over the past week or two have revealed some interesting snippets that point towards delayed, but very meaningful, steps forward.
Essentially the Programme has four current focal points. The effort to design the eventual FIA GT3 spec car, now due to be submitted to the Balance of Performance process in late September 2016 for 2017 competition.
That car’s progress is now well advanced, but not finalised, the process underway in Japan with a fundamental change in the team responsible, Lexus having shifted emphasis from the programme being handled by a less experienced in-house team to their very best designers and engineers. It seems a major miscalculation was initially made in the level at which GT3 should be pitched, not only in performance terms, but also in the depth of experience required to provide the correct performance parameters to produce a car with a set of performance parameters capable of the level of adjustment required to stay competitive.
The Japanese design/ build programme is being supported by the solo Lexus RC-F GT3 being campaigned in Super GT by the LM Corsa team which is seeing enhanced support from Lexus as the process continues. The car is described by one source in Japan as being a mild development of the car withdrawn from the BoP process last year.
That car, and the two similar cars being run in VLN competition (by Emil Frey Racing and Farnbacher Racing) in Class SP-X (non-homologated) are due to receive a development engine in the next few weeks, this a step towards the ultimate spec and construction that will feature in the car for the BoP process but not yet the final engine!
Finally all of that is having a continuing effect on the final part of the jigsaw with the US-based piece in the story, the Paul Gentilozzi-run F-Performance team, having confirmed that they will not, after all, enter the IMSA race at Detroit this coming weekend, opting to test instead with no 2016 date now set for a race debut.
