GRIFFIN CONFIRM 2009 SPORTSCAR RACING PLANS

Irish driver Matt Griffin and British racing driver Peter Bamford  have revealed their plans for this season, with the pairing competing in the International GT Open Championship for the 2009 season. The duo, who raced together in the GT3 category of British GT and GT2 class of the International GT Open championships last season, have chosen to focus their efforts on the GT2 category for 2009. Griffin will also take part in the British GT Championship racing with Mtech racing Ferrari.

Racing a Ferrari F430 GT with the Advanced Engineering team in the eight round International GT Open series, Bamford and Griffin will concentrate on a dedicated GT2 programme, Super GT as it is known in GT Open, and have been preparing for the new season with a structured test schedule that has given them a strong foundation for the race weekends ahead.

"We’ve made the decision to consolidate our efforts in GT2 this year", says Bamford. "It took the first half of last season to learn the two cars - one GT2, the other GT3 - as they did differ, particularly with regards to gearboxes and brakes. In the second half we started to be closer to the pace in GT Open and we recorded a number of good finishes and won in Monza, so it was a very productive year. I learned so much and now want to build on this, which has led to our decision to concentrate on the International GT Open." 

Bamford says of the new season, "The GT Open Series is a good challenge for us. We’ll be racing in the company of some of the best GT drivers in the world on many of the best circuits.. With many professional driver pairings as well as teams like ours, we are realistically looking for consistent top ten finishes, but some podium positions are the goal this year. And if I look further ahead there’s the lure of Le Mans 24 hours, which every sportscar driver dreams of competing in

Team mate Matt Griffin from, Cork in Ireland is considered to be one of the most promising of the current crop of up and coming international GT drivers. Having finished in the top six in the British Formula Renault Championships in 2001 and 2002, Griffin went on to win the British GT Championship in 2003.

Griffin commented, "GT Open is a fantastic series. It is just as competitive as FIA GT or the Le Mans Series and it has more GT2 cars than any other series- over 20 at many races last year We felt at the end of last season that we should review our options for 2009 and we that this offered all the criteria that are important to us – the quality of drivers, the size of grid and the competitiveness of the field. I think we’ve given ourselves the right challenge and by focusing on GT2 we’ll accelerate our learning, develop quickly and hopefully bring home the results we’re targeting."

The International GT Open, with an expected grid of around 40 entries, will kick off on the 18 & 19 April at the Imola Circuit in Italy. The eight round series will take the teams to some of the top Formula One circuits in Europe and will end on the at the Catalunya Circuit in Barcelona, Spain on the 1st of November.