British motorsport powerhouse RML Group is open to leading the Le Mans Hypercar project if the chance arises to hitch the World Endurance Championship grid.
The Wellingborough-based company is best known for taking the Vauxhall and Nissan works teams to British Touring Car Championship glory within the Super Touring era of the Nineteen Nineties and winning World Touring Car Championship crowns for Chevrolet within the twenty first century.
However, RML, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary this yr, has its roots in endurance racing based on sports prototypes.
RML's first project was the Ecurie Ecosse Group C2 squad, which took the teams to the 1986 World Sportscar Championship title, before the corporate ran the Aston Martin plant within the Group C principal class in 1989 after which partnered with Nissan North America with 1990 Le 24-hour attack on Mans.
Although RML has not had a full racing team since withdrawing from the WTCC when Yvan Muller won the championship in 2013 in a Chevrolet Cruze, its chief executive Michael Mallock Jr said when asked by Motorsport.com that the need is “100%” there come back in this way.
“The hypercar is a improbable concept. The growth of WEC and IMSA has been incredible and it's improbable to see so many manufacturers,” he said.
“It's a little frustrating that we're not really there in a lot of ways, but we'd like to be there as a team.”
As well as a variety of high-performance road automotive and record-breaking projects, RML supplies specialist parts to the BTCC, while advanced work on battery technology means it’s now working with undisclosed clients not only in Le Mans Hypercar but in addition in Formula 1.
RML drove the Nissan Primeras that won the BTCC title with Laurent Aiello in 1999
Photo: Malcolm Griffiths / Motorsport Images
The group also revealed a special edition Hypercar-inspired P39 design, based on the Porsche 992.1 Turbo S and limited to only 10 examples.
“We If in Hypercar also in an unknown way, due to our battery technology working with the OEM for the following three generations,” Mallock Jr. added.
“Another area where we use our battery expertise is in the single-seater grand championships [F1]…”
RML is already energetic on the lower levels of endurance racing with the production of the Lotus Emira GT4 automotive, which continues its development of the Jaguar F-type. The company can also be keen to explore the chances of the GT3.
“Endurance racing is very much the foundation of Mallock and RML,” Mallock Jr. said. “If the chance arose with a well-funded GT and OEM team, we’d definitely be there.
“We have many long-term employees – we celebrated three twentieth anniversaries this yr, which is impressive.
“Even though the corporate has grown tremendously, the love and focus for motorsports continues to be evident throughout the corporate.
“We would have no problem getting support from our company if the right motorsport opportunity arose.”
A special article celebrating RML's fortieth anniversary in motorsport will appear on this week's edition of Autosport Engineering, which will probably be published on October 17. Click here to search out out more about Autosport magazine.
