Benthely Motorsport is returning to North America with the Continental GT3 being added by Dyson Racing, beginning with the Pirelli World Challenge at Road America in Wisconsin, June 21.
Last weekend, the Bentley Continental GT3 had an impressive opening round of Blancpain Endurance in Italy last weekend and is following up on that with the announcement that they’ll be coming to America courtesy of Dyson Racing.
Dyson will race a pair of GT3s in the second half of the Pirelli World Challenge as a lead-in to a full season for 2015. This will be the first time a Bentley has been officially sponsored on North American race tracks since 2003.
“Now that our European motorsport programme is up and running, securing a return to racing in our biggest market is the natural next step. It’s extremely exciting to be back here with a racecar, and I’m delighted to be working with the Dyson team. Their operation reflects and embodies so many Bentley values, and I’m very confident in their abilities. This venture is the next step in the Continental GT3 plan, which we hope will eventually see our customers racing in Bentleys all around the world.”
Development work and assignments for the single-driver sprint races will be shared among Chris Dyson and long-time Dyson Racing team members Guy Smith and Butch Leitzinger. The latter are also veteran Bentley Boys, Leitzinger as a driver of the class-winning Bentley EXP-8 at Le Mans in 2001 and 2002, Smith as a driver of the Le Mans overall-winning Bentley Speed 8 in 2003. Smith, who was also a development driver for the current Bentley Continental GT3 program and who is now piloting one in five races of the 2014 European Blancpain Series, will drive with Dyson Racing Team Bentley as his European commitments permit.
