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ESM to skip Petit Le Mans in order to run WEC Six Hours of Shanghai

Extreme Speed Motorsports has revealed plans to run another WEC race later this year.

#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b Honda: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek, Simon Pagenaud, Anthony Lazzaro

#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b Honda: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek, Simon Pagenaud, Anthony Lazzaro

Eric Gilbert

#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek
#30 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX 03b - Honda: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Ed Brown
#30 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX 03b - Honda: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Ed Brown
#1 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel
#30 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX 03b - Honda: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Ed Brown
#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek
#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b Honda: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek
#2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b Honda: Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek
#1 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel

Extreme Speed Motorsports announced today that they are forgoing the Petit Le Mans round of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship and will instead be running at the Six Hours of Shanghai in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The plan

This announcement indicated that ESM will have two cars running in the LMP2 class, with Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel and Ricardo Gonzalez driving the number 30 HPD ARX 03b with Johannes van Overbeek, Ed Brown and David Brabham driving the number 31 car.

We’re committed to going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. I feel it is important for us to pick the absolute hardest race that the team could do, and that means racing in China

Ed Brown

In order to prepare the cars for Shanghai, skipping Petit Le Mans in October is a necessity. However, in order to prepare the team for taking on the challenge of Le Mans next year, Brown indicated that going to China was the best thing that the team could do.

“We’re committed to going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. I feel it is important for us to pick the absolute hardest race that the team could do, and that means racing in China; there’s language, food and logistics issues, among other challenges. If we truly want to be competitive at Le Mans or any other WEC race, we need to get our hands around the series and regulations at one of the most demanding locations. The best thing we can do is throw a challenge at the team. We’re going to learn so much in the week in China; it will pay huge dividends,” Brown said.

Partial TUDOR schedule in 2015?

This could pay huge dividends for the team for 2015. The team will still race in the United States, but there’s a chance that the team might only do the North American Endurance Championship. Brown expanded upon this in a previous interview with motorsport.com.

“I think you’ll see us absolutely run the North American [Endurance] Championship in the TUSC series and maybe pick up a couple of races here and there, but we need to get past this season and sit down and we really have our plate quite full because the coupes are getting delivered to us mid-November, we’ve got to shake them down quick because of the holidays and be ready for the Roar right after New Years, so I think we’ve just go to take a breath here a little bit and see what we’re going to do.”

Their 2015 plans will be finalized in the offseason.

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