Introducing One Group Racing
New teams come along once in a while some stay, some don’t. But there’s a new team set to emerge for 2024 that somehow seems worthy of more serious consideration than many others. Not least because the man behind it has massive heritage and success, not (thus far at least!) in GTs – but in Touring Cars!
UK-based Dutchman Ron Hartvelt’s racing career includes several years with Red Bull, helping the now-dominant F1 outfit to transition from its Jaguar Racing predecessor, but it would be fair to say that touring cars have been, to this point, the defining genre for what has been a success-studded career.
That heritage began as a junior engineer at RML in the mid-1990s with a role in the Vauxhall Cavalier programme in the BTCC.
His career at RML indeed continued through three different and very successful eras, through the Cavalier to the title-winning Nissan Primera and then Chevrolet (Lacetti and Cruze) periods (seen below with Alain Menu) with titles coming regularly as Hartvelt rose through the ranks to lead the engineering teams for the world’s most successful touring car builders and race teams of the period.
The RML years saw him involved in the early part too of the Saleen S7-R programme, the US- supercar and GT racer developed by RML for the track.
There was time too with Opel in Germany and STW and DTM efforts but the next move would lay down roots that are still a part of his story today.
He joined Polestar Cyan Racing to head up their Volvo S60 WTCC effort and came away with another World Title before heading to the emergent Lynk & Co. TCR programme, again with title-winning success. Hartvelt’s CV includes personal involvement in no fewer than 15 global touring car championships!
Those last two programmes saw him catch the eye of Volvo’s owner, Chinese-based multinational Geely, where he was appointed as customer sport director in 2020.
Alongside that, he was building his own engineering outfit – One Group Engineering – established back in 2016, where he has developed quite the reputation as a ‘go-to’ service provider for delivering motorsport and low-volume automotive engineering programmes from design to track engineering.
Alongside the trackside and office-based functions One Group Engineering operates the Lynk & Co. TCR Customer Sports programme – indeed chassis #29 was built in the workshop during DSC’s recent visit.
And those workshops are set to be the operating base for the outfit’s next venture, a planned GT3 campaign in the 2024 season.
Advanced negotiations are already underway with multiple manufacturers as the team closes in on a choice of machinery with a parallel programme nearing its conclusion to determine just which races and championships the new squad will take on in its debut 2024 season.
One Group Engineering’s race team is to be based in new premises at Sywell Aerodrome, a historic location with a growing high-tech community of businesses gravitating to its surrounding business parks. It has moved into a pair of brand new units on the appropriately named Brooklands Technology Park, with everything in place for the start of its new racing adventure, including access, when required, to Sywell’s runway for shakedown and straight-line testing.
So, after decades in touring cars, why GT racing?
“We have been following the development in GT racing for a while, whilst supporting teams within it. The success of GT racing and its continuity is almost unmatched in any other form of motorsport other than F1,” said Hartvelt to DSC.
“Now that the road to Le Mans has been opened up for GT3 cars, GT racing appears to be the place to be more than ever.
“This journey to operate a GT team is not a switch or a move away from touring cars. Whilst we have a heritage in touring cars we have a lot of experience in other disciplines of motorsport including GT racing.
“The programme sits in parallel with our other programs and supports our strategy to grow. It will benefit the work we do in for our other customers whether in touring cars or other disciplines with more strength in depth and size.”
The next step is clearly making firm and final decisions on where to race and with whom. Hartvelt is keen to remain both realistic but ambitious for the team’s short to medium-term goals.
“We aim to start with a two-car team in an international series,” he added. “We are at the start of our journey and we need to earn our stripes in the paddock.
“We don’t want to grow too quickly either, to ensure we deliver what we promise and want to focus on excellence rather than volume. That’s related to our longer-term ambitions, and we have to be humble and focus on building something sustainable and earn respect in this category.
“We are ambitious too with the aim to go to Le Mans on behalf of an OEM in the next five years.”
These are words that this writer has heard before, but the heritage here is of a quality and depth that the final three words of this article should be taken more seriously. –
Watch this space…
