Two-time – and reigning – American Le Mans Series Champions, Muscle Milk Pickett Racing will enter an Oreca 03 LMP2 in the inaugural United SportsCar Championship.
Pickett Racing has been involved in endurance racing since 2007, entering the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 2008. Since then the team has racked up 20 overall wins in the ALMS since 2010 and two consecutive titles with drivers Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf.
The 2014 campaign for Pickett Racing will see a wealth of experienced team members joining the squad, mostly from IndyCar, as the team starts a new chapter in its history by taking on the Oreca 03 machine.
“This is an exciting time for us at Muscle Milk Pickett Racing as we welcome Oreca as one of our new partners” said Muscle Milk Pickett Racing team owner, Greg Pickett. “After winning the last two P1 Championships in the American Le Mans Series, it was important for us to choose partners for our new adventure into the Prototype Class of the Tudor Championship that can help us continue, and build on, the success we’ve known so far. I very much appreciate the input and guidance I received from our two championship drivers Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf who were instrumental in helping us make this important decision. I can’t wait to see them behind the wheel of our new Oreca 03/Nissan prototype.”
The Nissan-powered Oreca, which took 10 wins out of 14 in the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series, will be in the top category of the series, comprised of both LMP2 and Daytona Prototype machinery.
“It was one of our priorities to have an Oreca 03 LMP2 on the grid of the new American endurance championship and we are thrilled that it’s the two-time ALMS champs, Muscle Milk Pickett Racing, who are the first to announce their choice” added Hugues de Chaunac, President of ORECA. “Greg Pickett’s team has shown both their level of performance and their impressive level of professionalism in recent years ; it’s an honour and a responsibility to entrust one of our prototypes to a top team such as theirs. The United States is a special place for us and the USCC represents a thrilling new chapter. Our goal is clear : win the classics like Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans as a constructor. I can’t wait to see our prototypes race at Daytona, 14 years after our overall victory with the Viper. It’s a new step in the Group’s development in the USA.”
