Having elected to set up his own team to compete in the American Le Mans Series, Gil de Ferran will make his return to racing this coming weekend in the latest round of the season at Salt Lake City.
The former Indy 500 winner, who spent three years overseeing the Honda
F1 programme as sporting director, will partner Simon Pagenaud in the #66 Acura ARX-01b, with Panasonic ELS onboard as title sponsor for the team's debut season in the ALMS.
Having hit the track for the first time last month at Sebring, and with a further test at Miller Motorsports Park under its belt, the team will now debut back at the Utah circuit this weekend in the fourth round of the season – marking the first time since 2003 that de Ferran will have seen competitive competition.
“Considering this started as a conversation about a potential race team only a few of months ago, it is quite emotional to witness what has happened and see it evolve, develop and become reality,” he said. “I was in the workshop last week and we had all our mechanics engineers and technicians there – we had more than 20 people working incredibly hard inside a facility which didn't exist a couple of months ago.
“The car was finished, the new truck had arrived and it suddenly it really hit me – wow, this is for real. All our guys on the team have been working extremely long hours and pulled out a superhuman effort for the Sebring test.”
Team-mate Pagenaud is another driver primarily known for his exploits in open-wheel competition, but de Ferran said he was confident that the Frenchman will be the perfect partner through the remainder of the season.
“Simon has a very good reputation in the industry - that was the first thing that attracted me to him,” he said. “That goes beyond just his on-track results which of course have been very impressive. It is about the overall package – how he works with the team, his work ethic, fitness, how he relates with sponsors, etc.
