Porsche has confirmed speculation that Dyson Racing will make the dramatic switch to the LMP2 class of the American Le Mans Series, having acquired a brace of RS Spyders for 2007.

The move, which leaves the future of LMP1 open to question, also takes the New York State operation back to its mid-1980s roots, when team owner Rob Dyson was persuaded to consider a Porsche 962 instead of a March for his graduation to IMSA competition. The team will now campaign two of the proven race-winning RS Spyder
prototypes in what is looking to be a competitive LMP2 category.

"When we announced our ALMS participation in Atlanta in April 2005, it was our target to have the RS Spyder being raced by customer teams in 2007, so having the Dyson team as a customer is exactly what we were going for," Porsche Motorsport's Hartmut Kristen commented.

Kristen also pointed out that Dyson would be treated as an equal with 2006 Porsche partner Penske, despite the DHL-backed team being used for development work. Indeed, he confirmed that Porsche would provide a factory race engineer for both chassis and engine to Dyson.

"We will continue our development work together with the Penske Motorsports team, and will do all the testing with them, [but] the results of this work, and the new developments, will be made available to our customer teams as well," he said, "This is a very clear arrangement. The RS Spyders for Penske and Dyson are exactly the same 2007 models, and the engines we are providing to the teams are identical as well."

Dyson has already confirmed its line-up for next season, with ALMS veteran Andy Wallace returning to replace the retired James Weaver. Although the Briton had expected - indeed, had been announced - to race a Lola, he will now share Porsche duties with Chris Dyson, Butch Leitzinger and Guy Smith, with an additional announcement awaited regarding extra drivers for the Sebring 12 Hours.

"We are thrilled with this new partnership," Dyson Jr admitted, "The Porsche factory, the development engineers at testing, and the technical staff at the track will all be supporting our efforts. We look forward to competing against Penske Motorsports, but we know they are development partners as well. This is a very nice step in our team's evolution, and returning to Porsche feels like coming home."

Dyson expects to take delivery of one car in time for the ALMS winter test at Sebring in late January, with the second car due to arrive in February.