USCC – Mazda with two LM P2 diesel engines

“This is Mazda’s largest sporting program since our victory at Le Mans in 1991”, rejoices John Doonan, director of Mazda Motorsports. Next year, Mazda will enter two diesel-powered LM P2s in the United SportsCar Championship. “And thanks to our Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D which won 12 Grand-Am races in the GX category and which gleaned the Manufacturers' title this year, we are confident that our prototypes will be able to compete with the benchmarks in North America . » He continues.

The two cars that the Japanese firm will field will in fact be equipped with the same four-cylinder SKYACTIV-D 2.0 liter diesel as the famous Mazda6 that Doonan is talking about. The class successes achieved over the last two years have made the brand want to look higher. Unsurprisingly, the task of operating these cars will fall to the SpeedSource Race Engineering team. Mazda is also in discussions with customer teams interested in the LM P2 and others wishing to transform the Mazda6 into a GT Daytona.

“As competitors, you always want to race in the fastest category, explains Sylvain Tremblay, boss of SpeedSource Engineering. The development of the Mazda SKYACTIV-D was the result of intense work on the part of Mazda and SpeedSource and bringing it to the forefront in prototypes in its second year of competition will be a complicated task. The months of November and December promise to be busy. »
 
The drivers will be announced later, and the cars will make their first public appearance during the “Roar Before the 24”, tests organized as a preamble to the 24 Hours of Daytona from January 3 to 5.