Multimatic Motorsports heads to Road Atlanta this week for the season-closing IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge events. In addition to running two Ford Mustang GT4s for some special guests at Road Atlanta, Multimatic continues to support the Mazda DPi and Ford GT entrants so the full team of over 35 engineers and technicians will be on-site.
Fresh from his headline-grabbing season in the British GT Championship, Seb Priaulx will make his US racing debut this weekend, competing in the Michelin Pilot Challenge as team mate to Austin Cindric in the #15 Ford Mustang GT4. Joining them in the sister #22 Mustang GT4 are Chase Briscoe and Cole Custer, who along with Cindric compete full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The Ford NASCAR drivers are always popular guests in the Multimatic Mustangs and Priaulx in particular is looking forward to racing with them.
“I can’t wait for Road Atlanta!” he said. “I get to race the GT4 Mustang with the NASCAR guys at a track that I have heard so much about. It’s a new challenge for me as I have never even raced in the US before. It’s an exciting challenge and I hope I can do a great job for everyone at Multimatic.”
The two-hour IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race takes place this Friday at 13:25 ET (18:25 BST).
Saturday brings the final race on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule: the 10-hour ‘Petit Le Mans’. For Multimatic it will be a poignant day as this is the final race for the factory Ford GT programme, a car that has ‘Multimatic’ stamped right through it. Over the past four years, the four Ford GT race cars have notched up 22 pole positions and 19 victories, including an historic win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016.
Petit Le Mans will also close out an incredible season for Mazda Team Joest. The Multimatic-designed and developed Mazda RT24-P found its sweet spot this year, highlighted with a three-race run of victories. To finish the season with another win would be the icing on the cake as Multimatic’s chief technical officer, Larry Holt explains:
“2019, for me, will always be the year when the Mazda DPi programme came good,” he said. “The whole thing is a story of technical excellence and tenacity. We knew the performance was in the car but there always seemed to be a reason why it couldn’t be unlocked. Multimatic made a massive commitment, two years ago, to find the key and it turned out to be a highly complex combination of things that needed putting right. My team put their heads down and got it done, along with our partners at AER and Joest, where we stepped in and helped with their programmes as well. I am super proud of the “Mazda Summer” where we won three major events in a row. Everybody deserved it.
“This year’s Petit will be bittersweet for me as the Ford GT bows out after four amazing years running in two championships across the globe,” continued Holt. “Again, Multimatic is massively proud of the car that we conceived, developed and produced and have our fingers crossed that Chip’s amazing team can end it all on a major high! And finally to the Mustangs, a model we have been developing and running since 1994; it’s been a great season in British GT and IMSA Michelin Pilot Cup and we’re aggressively hunting the top step of the podium in Atlanta. The NASCAR “kids” have blown me away this year and all of them could compete at the top of any road racing series in the world in my opinion. (Scott) Maxwell would normally join Austin for this race but he, Sean (Mason) and I thought it would be a secret surprise to bring Sebby in. Austin won his first IMSA race with us back in 2015 in the Shelby GT350R-C when he was 16 years old and so it is appropriate for us to stick our present youngest driver in with him this coming weekend. I expect big things from those two. I hope Austin’s Dad, who runs the Penske Acura DPis, has less luck!!”
