The legendary Maserati name will be coming back to the British GT Championship as Ebor GT announced plans to race a Maserati GranTurismo MC GT4 for Abbie Eaton and Marcus Hoggarth.
Ebor GT, who are new to the championship but have GT experience running a Ferrari 458 in GT Cup, will again be linking up with Hoggarth who took that car to second in the GT Cup series last year.
His co-driver Abbie Eaton is a vastly experience driver who has proved rapid in anything she turned her hand to with a Mazda MX-5 SuperCup title to go with the strong finish she achieved in GT Cup’s GTB category this year.
Eaton, who will be competing in British GT for the first time, is clearly looking forward to it. She said: “It will be my debut year in the championship and after working hard the past few years I am thrilled to have been given this opportunity. The car looks a fantastic piece of kit and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. The car’s Balance of Performance will be completed over the coming month in preparation for its maiden outing at the British GT media day at Snetterton on March 15th.
“Having shared a podium with Marcus last year in GT Cup I am confident of our driver pairing and hope we will push each all year.”
Team owner Adrian Snook said the car’s development in the single-make Maserati championship where the car made it’s name, made the GranTurismo ideal for their venture into British GT: “We’ve always worked with Italian cars and the GranTurismo MC GT4 is a beautiful machine so we saw it as the next step. GT4 racing is good value compared to GT3 and British GT is the best place to do it by the looks of it as the grid larger than ever. We chose the Maserati as it’s been racing for a while now as a single-make Trophy car so it’s a proven product with plenty of miles of development on it.”
This new announcement makes it the first time in almost 20 years the Italian marque will feature on the grid, following on from a Ghibli GT2 that contested a couple of rounds in 1998.
It won’t be the only Maserati to take to the track this year as the European GT4 Series, which features a handful of GranTurismos, joins up with British GT at Silverstone and Spa Francorchamps.
