United Autosports has confirmed that it will enter the full 2018 North American Endurance Cup season with a single Ligier JSP217-Gibson.
The Anglo-American team, which is co-led by McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Le Mans class winner Richard Dean, was originally expected to run at this weekend's Daytona 24 Hours only.
Bruno Senna, Phil Hanson, and one soon to be announced team-mate are set to contest the 12 Hours of Sebring, 6 Hours of Watkins Glen, and the 10-hour Petit Le Mans season finale at Road Atlanta.
Introduced in 2014, the North American Endurance Cup (NAEC) is a sub-championship within the 10-round IMSA Sportscar series calendar.
It has been won each year by Action Express Racing's Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi, who were also joined by Filipe Albuquerque last season.
United Autosports has entered two Ligiers for the IMSA and NAEC opener at Daytona, with Hanson sharing a car with Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris, and Senna co-driving with Paul di Resta, Will Owen and Hugo de Sadeleer.
"I’m pleased United Autosports have committed to racing in the four IMSA endurance events in the US," said Brown.
"Phil and Bruno have settled into the team really well in a short space of time and putting them together in one car will create a great line up.”
Senna added: "So far the team has been great and we have been working together very well and the environment in the team is really fun."
"We have a lot of work to do for sure. There’s always so much car and team development throughout a season and the first race is always a big learning curve."
"Each race will give us very different challenges: Sebring is a tough bumpy track so there will be a lot of work to do to get the car nice for us to drive for 12 hours, but I’m excited to see what we can do. I’m familiar with all the circuits so I will do what I can to help the team and Phil get up to speed."
The NAEC programme will mark Hanson's debut appearances at Sebring, Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans, while Senna finished third in the endurance campaign last year driving a Nissan DPi.
"I’m really looking forward to racing in the North American Endurance Cup," said 18-year-old Hanson.
"It will be a good supplement to an already pretty lavish programme we have going on with the European Le Mans Series and the Daytona 24, so it will fill up my calendar quite nicely."
"It’s been a pretty good start to 2018, the guys are doing a really good job, I think I’m fitting in quite well and I’m enjoying having a structured approach to my racing.”
United Autosports will line up 13th and 15th for the Daytona 24 Hours, which gets underway on Saturday, January 27th at 14:40 (19:40 UK time).
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