[Raceboy]

Team Bentley will enter its Speed 8 sports prototypes in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring—the American Le Mans Series season opener—next March. A two-car entry is planned as a shakedown for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. No drivers were announced, but Bentley Motors Chairman Franz-Josef Paefgen pledged to secure “the very best drivers available.”

This is the third year of competition for the Bentley Speed 8, which was built to Le Mans' GTP class regulations for closed-cockpit prototype. In its 2001 Le Mans debut—marking Bentley’s return to motorsports after a 71-year absence—Team Bentley finished first in its class, and third overall. This past June, Bentley’s lead car finished fourth overall in the endurance classic.

For 2003, Team Bentley will be integrated under one roof at racing technology norfolk in Norfolk, England. Team Bentley will continue to be run directly by Bentley Motors in Crewe, with Brian Gush, Bentley’s director of chassis, powertrain and motorsport, at its helm. John Wickham, who managed the team’s Le Mans program the past two years, has been appointed team director, reporting to Gush. Based at rtn, Wickham will continue running the operational functions of the race and test programs.

Sebring 2003 will mark only the second time that Bentley works cars will have raced on American soil. In 1922 a works Bentley 3-liter competed in the Indianapolis 500. Onlookers were stunned when the British car was uncrated from its sea voyage, and took to the track immediately! The car proved totally unsuitable for the event, but still managed to finish in 13th place, the last car to complete the full 200 laps!

bron: speedtv.com