Moorespeed Confirms IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge and Pirelli World Challenge Opener

with Will Hardeman

Strong Test at Circuit of The Americas Has Moorespeed and Hardeman Primed for Next Week’s World Challenge Race and IMSA GT3 Cup Season

Moorespeed confirmed today its 2016 participation in the IMSA Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama as well as next weekend’s season-opening Pirelli World Challenge race at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) with returning team driver Will Hardeman.Hardeman, Moorespeed President David Moore, and the No. 19 WPD/Moorespeed Porsche GT3 Cup team are all based in Austin and tested on their home track at COTA early last week. The productive two-day session was in preparation for both the COTA Pirelli World Challenge race weekend, March 3 – 6, and the season-opening IMSA GT3 Cup rounds at Sebring International Raceway, March 16 – 18.“It was our first time back together as a team since last year’s finale at Laguna Seca but I could quickly tell our hard work in 2015 paid off,” Hardeman said. “The program Dave Moore and the team put me through last year was very intense and carried into my thought process all winter. I focused a lot on areas where I needed to improve, shed some of the bad habits I developed, and came back to the track much more focused mentally. The result was a test that couldn’t have gone better, really our best ever together.”Moorespeed and Hardeman will race together for a second-consecutive full season in IMSA GT3 Cup’s top-tier Platinum division. Their Pirelli World Challenge debut will be in the GT Cup division, an all-Porsche GT3 Cup class similar in format to IMSA GT3 Cup.“Will and I had a very strong relationship before racing and it’s only grown since this journey started 18 months ago,” Moore said. “He’s at a much more advanced level now, which has made my job as coach much easier in some respects but harder in others. We are chasing thousandths of a second now instead of chunks, and there is certainly less chatter between us on the radio now that he has truly developed as a formidable driver.”Moorespeed and Hardeman had originally planned to race in the 6 Hours of the Americas at COTA to start their 2016 season but quickly looked to the Pirelli World Challenge event the same weekend after the endurance race was postponed.

“Greg Gill and all the staff at PWC have really bent over backwards helping us come back, which only happened after SRO canceled the 6 Hours of America,” Moore said. “The team at PWC understands who their customers are so it’s cool to come back to a vibrant World Challenge field where the competition is as fierce as ever. When we tested with PWC last week, we ran into a lot of old friends that still remember when we were a force to be reckoned with. Maybe in due time we will give them a run in GT again, but for now one step at a time. There are some top drivers in the GT Cup class that are going to give Will a true test, both of us are looking forward to the race and feel we have as good a chance as anyone.”Moorespeed did not participate in this week’s IMSA testing at Sebring, which concluded today, but is looking forward to returning to the legendary track less than a month from now.“Will was very green when we raced at Sebring,” Moore said. “It was his first IMSA race and he had only done two other races in his life before that, one was at Sebring the other at Daytona. Even so, he ended up breaking into the top 10 and running some of the quickest laps in the field during the second race. He has such a better handle on what it takes to learn a track, Sebring will be a challenge to learn all the tricks to be competitive, but I feel confident if anyone can do it in the time we have it is Will. We need to keep hitting the simulator but it’s going to take learning all the track characteristics, bumps and tricks that you have to be on track to accomplish, so the promoter test day will be important for sure.”Both the COTA and Sebring events are doubleheaders with the Pirelli World Challenge races on Saturday, March 5, and Sunday, March 6, and the IMSA GT3 Cup sprints on Thursday, March 17, and Friday, March 18.


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