James Sutton has announced that he is to join the Italian Porsche Carrera Cup and hopes to contest selected Porsche Mobil1 Supercup races.
The 2007 Porsche Carrera GB Champion concluded the deal to join the grid just a week before the opening rounds of the season at Misano and had to face a 952 mile journey over two days to arrive at the track in time due to the closure of the UK Airspace.
Speaking about the deal which took Sutton to Italy and the team from Centro Porsche Padova., the 2009 PCCGB runner up said: “It's very competitive out there, but the package is good for me, We all want to make a really good job of the Italian series and do as well as we can in the Supercup races and then hopefully progress into the Supercup full time in 2011”, before adding: “There is the possibility of doing two or three Supercup races this year, depending on how the sponsor feels we are progressing and with a bit of luck, if I can persuade them, that will include Silverstone. The Supercup is still my target and I believe that is the ambition for the team as well. That has been my aim since the start of 2007 when I first raced in Carrera Cup GB.
Sutton made his Italian debut in 2009 at Monza and said that racing in Italy will bring its own challenges: “The language is a problem as my Italian is shocking at the moment,” he said. “Learning the circuits is another big challenge as I've really kept my career to Britain so far. It's taken me outside my comfort zone a little bit, and I'm finding that side of it so enjoyable. The heat is another issue to cope with. In the Italian summer it's going to be similar to the Abu Dhabi Supercup race I did last November.”
After the opening rounds of the seventeen race calendar, Sutton is currently third in the standings with eighteen points.
Another challenge for Sutton will come in the way of a fifty minute race at Imola: “That will be another new challenge for me,” he said.
Photo credit: Porsche
