Porsche factory driver Laurens Vanthoor will join Pfaff Motorsports for a full-season GTD campaign in the 2021 IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
The Canadian outfit will once again be fielding its #9 Porsche 911 GT3 R for the full campaign, with Vanthoor partnering team regular Zacharie Robichon. Lars Kern will join the team for the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds, while Matt Campbell completes the line-up for the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
For Vanthoor, the move means he will continue to racing in the North American series after Porsche closed its GTLM programme at the end of the 2020 season.
“When Porsche announced the end of the current GTLM program, I was disappointed because I love racing in America,” Vanthoor said. “So to be able to continue here and build on my future in IMSA with Pfaff is something I’m very happy about.
“I’ve done my homework on Pfaff Motorsports and have heard a lot of good things, so I think together with Zach Robichon, we have a very good package to go for the championship. That’s clearly our goal and mine as well, so I’m very much looking forward to that.”
Robichon is no stranger to the Canadian team, winning multiple races in 2019 en route to the Sprint Cup title.
“I don’t think we can underestimate the excitement that myself and the team have just to be racing again,” Robichon said. “Looking at both our performances from [Daytona and Road Atlanta] last season, we believe that we can accomplish a lot going into 2021.”
Pfaff Motorsports returns to the championship full-time after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the team to severely downgrade its 2020 programme. Team manager Steve Bortolotti says he is glad to be able to return to the championship in 2021.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be back in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2021,” he said. “Obviously we started last season showing some great promise, and we’re looking to pick up right where we left off.
“Primarily, I’m looking forward to our four drivers working together; in some way, Lars, Matt and Zach have all worked together.
“Laurens will be working with the three of them for the first time, but he obviously comes with some incredible experience and an impressive resume, so I’m sure it will be a seamless adaptation between all of them.”
“I would like to thank our partners for sticking by us during all the uncertainty we faced in 2020,” Bortolotti continued. “We’re really looking forward to having Motul back on board for the new season, because they’re instrumental in making all of this possible. Porsche Centre Markham, the Pfaff group’s new dealership, joins Pfaff Porsche on the car alongside our other long-term partners.”
Bortolotti concluded by saying that the team will go into the 2021 campaign with a different mindset, focused more on championship contention than race wins.
“We’re really looking at the bigger picture in 2021. In 2019, we proved that we had the pace, but I think our downfall was that we were too focused on winning every race we attended.”
“Going in with the mindset of maximizing points week in and week out, I believe with our driver lineup and the team we’ve built that we can contend for the championship. Within that, the wins will come.”
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