One of the recently announced additional entries in next month's fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship is Extreme Speed Motorsports (ESM), which will be competing in the LMP2 category with its distinctively coloured green and black HPD ARX-03b.
The Florida-based team is excited to take on some of the world's best racers at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas and it will be a busy Lone Star Le Mans weekend as ESM will compete in both the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race and the FIA WEC 6 Hours of Circuit of The Americas.
On Saturday evening, in the WEC race that will go into the night, Scott Sharp, Ed Brown and Ryan Dalziel will be co-driving the team's flagship Tequila Patrón Honda Performance Development chassis.
Becoming a global contender with approximately one month to prepare is not going to be easy for ESM, as the team will need to make several modifications to the car which currently runs in the TUDOR Championship. The team will run on different tyres and a smaller air restrictor, have modified aerodynamics, and will have to install a different electronics package to comply with WEC/ACO regulations.
Scott Sharp: “This is exciting for ESM and Tequila Patrón to get a feel and a taste for the WEC and the one-off race at COTA. This will be exciting for us to compete against other LMP2 cars from around the world and in a different series. Our TUDOR No.1 car is pretty much out of the points and the No. 2 car is a little bit closer; the timing worked out well for us to compete in the WEC race and we want to see how we compete against some of the best sports car racers in the world. This will be a good experience for us; a good way to test the waters.”
Ed Brown: “We’re excited to run a WEC race to see what that series is about. The WEC has grown leaps and bounds in the last year with some of the top manufacturers, drivers and teams racing there. We want to go and take our ESM Tequila Patrón HPD P2 car there and see what it does against the WEC drivers. We couldn’t think of a better place than Austin, Texas, where I went to school and we know the track well. We’re really excited.
“We’re bringing Tequila Patrón into another racing series. It gives us more exposure and more fans. I’m doing a double-header there in the No. 2 car in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship and our other car in the WEC. It will be a great weekend. We’re looking forward to it.”
Quotes from ESM press release
Photo: The Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b which will race in the LMP2 class of the 6 Hours of Circuit of The Americas. It will carry a different number in the WEC.
