Flying Lizard Motorsports have announced their drive line up for the opening round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship at Daytona International Speedway.
The Audi R8s, racing in the GT Daytona class, are numbered #35 and #45 and will feature a mix of Lizards regulars as well as Audi Sport Factory drivers.
The #35, backed by PR Newswire and eSilicon, will feature team boss Seth Neiman, Dion Von Moltke, Filipe Albuquerque and Alessandro Latif.
Latif is a 17-year-old up and coming star of the sportscar season which included a test for Audi at the DTM Young Drivers test in Spain. Albuquerque is an Audi Sport regular who made his Rolex 24 at Daytona debut last year for Alex Job Racing in an Audi R8 which won the class as part of an Audi 1-2.
In the sister #45 full season pairing Nelson Canache Jr. and Spencer Pumpelly will be joined by 2012 FIA GT1 champion and two time Daytona 24 runner Markus Winkelhock as well as Tim Pappas.
Pappas was a regular GTC race winner in 2010 and 2011 in the American Le Mans Series with two driver’s titles under his belt. For the last two years he has been racing in the Pirelli World Challenge.
Thomas Blam, the team’s Chief Strategist and engineer on the No. 45, spoke about the driver lineups, stating:“It’s great to go into a big race with such strong driver lineups in each car, and both cars have the talent behind the wheel to help us compete for the class win. We’ve carried over both of our driver pairings from the 2013 season, and the consistency which Seth, Dion, Nelson, and Spencer bring will be a huge help as we start to race this new car.
“Filipe and Markus are Audi Sport factory drivers and bring a wealth of experience in the R8 LMS, as well as specific experience with the car at last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona race. Alessandro brings immense talent that we all will be watching, and Tim, a long time friend of the team, brings two GTC championships and significant race experience at Daytona as well. I can’t wait to get started and especially to go racing in a few more weeks.”
