Mazda Team Joest announce 2018 drivers

Mazda Team Joest has announced their 2018 drivers ahead of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The 6 drivers for the coming season will be Jonathan Bomarito, Tristan Nunez, Spencer Pigot, Oliver Jarvis, Rene Rast, and Harry Tincknell. Rast and Pigot will be the third drivers on the cars during the endurance races, but the exact composition of the line-ups are not yet finalized.

Mazda has had Speedsource as partners in the American sportscar series through the last few years, but ended their partnership midway through 2017 due to lack of results. Instead they started working with the German team Joest Racing, who previously ran Audi at all their Le Mans victories.

Photo: Mazda Motorsports

Joest Racing has been developing a totally new evolution of the Mazda RT-24P car at both Hockenheim and Daytona, where Rene Rast showed up for the first time during the test. Joest Racing and Rene Rast, plus Oliver Jarvis know each other from the Audi days, which no doubt had an influence on the driver choice.

Harry Tincknell has already proved his worth at JOTA Sport in LMP2, where he was a big part of securing a Le Mans victory plus the ELMS Championship for the team, and lately as works driver at Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA WEC, where he missed the World Championship by only a few points this season. Furthermore, Tincknell has the former Audi Sport driver Allan McNish as manager, so everything fits together.

Mazda Team Joest will present their new car at the Los Angeles Auto Show during this week.

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