Lexus RC F GT3 Racer Getting Ready to Roll
Lexus Race Car to Compete in Two Series in Two Countries in 2017
Lexus’ newest racer, the RC F GT3, surfaced last year. However, it has yet to see any real racing action. That’s going to come to an end in 2017 in a big way. The luxury automaker announced that it will be competing in not one, but two different racing series this year. And they’re on different sides of the world: the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the U.S., and the Japan-based Super GT series.
Despite their differences in geography, the two racing series carry similar rules. Both feature cars based on production vehicles with stock chassis and engines. With a little extra power, of course. The 5.0 V8 in the RC F GT3 is the same as the street legal RC F, but it produces 500 hp instead of 467.
‘This has been a long time coming and I’m so excited to be back in Daytona…
this is the start of everything.‘
— Scott Pruett
The Lexus RC F GT3 will make its racing debut this month at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in the GT Daytona class. Also making its debut at the same race is the Porsche 911 RSR. With some tough competition coming in the form of the Lamborghini Huracan and Acura NSX, this year’s Daytona endurance race should be rather entertaining.
Also, 2017 marks Lexus’ first North American sports car racing team partnership since 2009. Driver Scott Pruett racked up Rolex 24 wins in 2007 and 2008. Pruett also accumulated 22 total victories in Grand-Am Road Racing during that time. He is back for the RC F GT3’s debut, along with teammate Sage Karam and fellow Lexus drivers Robert Alon and Jack Hawksworth.
Both Lexus and Pruett hope to recapture some of that magic in the new GT3 car. For his part, Pruett seems pretty pumped about the whole thing.
“This has been a long time coming and I’m so excited to be back in Daytona,” says Pruett. “I love this place – everything about it – and with Lexus and everything they’re doing, this is the start of everything.
“It’s a brand new program for them,” he continues. “Everything we have to learn about the car is new. From my standpoint, moving from a prototype to a GT is significantly different, so there’s so much newness to it, but there’s so much excitement. I’ve been in this business a long time and when you can work with a manufacturer like Lexus there’s that freshness and that excitement to it all. Instead of just doing it all again, this is all for the first time.”
Lexus previously competed in the Grand-Am Road Racing’s Rolex Sports Car Series from 2004 to 2009. It claimed two driver’s championships, in 2004 and 2008; three overall victories in the Rolex 24, from 2006-08; and 25 race wins.
The 2017 International Motor Sports Aassociation season opens with the Rolex 24 at Daytona on Jan. 28 at Daytona International Speedway. Prior to the season-opening event, the Lexus RC F GT3s will participate in the Roar Before the Rolex 24, the final IMSA-sanctioned test session before the season opener, from Jan, 6-8 at Daytona.
