DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller has joined the Spirit of Daytona Racing Corvette DP team for TUDOR United SportsCar Championship‘s opening round at Daytona.
The team have also announced the full time signings of Michael Valiante and Richard Westbrook for their Corvette Daytona Prototype in the championships prototype class, Westbrook remaining with the team for a third consecutive season.
“Michael did a great job for us in 2012, and we are really excited for him to be back with us full-time this year,” said team owner Troy Flis. “He and Westy [Richard Westbrook] work really well together, and I think with some of the changes we are looking at on the engineering side of our program, we should not only come out of the box much stronger, but we will hopefully be able to develop a championship-contending campaign with our VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP.”
As well as being part of the Spirit of Daytona team for the full Rolex Series season of 2013 Westbrook has established himself as part of Corvette Racing’s GT team as one of the squad’s third drivers, a role he will continue at June’s 24 Hours of Le Mans: “As a group,” he says, “we’ve got very clear goals for 2014 and Troy [Flis] is doing everything he can to put this team in position to reach those goals. There are a lot of question marks about next year, so all I can think about is getting back in the car and getting to work, so I am very excited to have Michael on board.”
Canadian Valiante’s experience in Daytona Prototypes goes back to 2005 and has been a regular in the cars ever since, adding a pair of podium results, including a second place at Mid-Ohio, to his CV during the course of the 2013 season. “I’m really happy to have the full-season program in place and to be coming back to Spirit of Daytona Racing. It is a good feeling to have our plans in place, and to be able to now focus on what we need to do to be ready to go at Daytona.”