The web has been abuzz over the past 24 hours with news of a potential Bentley DPi programme in IMSA racing after the move to 2017 Prototype regulations, in what would be the marque’s first move into prototype racing since the Le Mans programme was completed with a victory in 2003.
That aspiration has been known about here for some months but at that point whilst a fair degree of technical and organisational work had been undertaken the project proper was stalled with a commercial case required for progress.
DSC now understands that whilst there remains a strong aspiration for such a programme amongst senior Bentley management and whilst technical work has progressed in the background there is still not a commercial package in place to allow the programme to progress. Any report of a confirmed timeline for a Bentley Prototype programme is therefore rather premature.
