North American outfit LAP Motorsports are reportedly developing a MINI TCR car for the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge with the support of MINI USA.
According to sportscar365.com LAP are developing the new car for 2018, having previously raced under the John Cooper Works banner since 2014.
The project apparently began in January and has been done with the full support of MINI USA, although the exact details of the model to be raced have not yet been confirmed.
“We obviously had an interest in TCR because we were looking at the future for MINI and us,” Team Principal Luis Perocarpi told Sportscar365. “We literally started the TCR project in January of this year.
“We didn’t know much at the time because there wasn’t a partnership between IMSA and TCR until the last couple of months, so we weren’t getting a lot of answers, but we started the project anyway.
“We’ve submitted all of our paperwork to TCR, we have all of the approvals from MINI USA.”
The announcement would mean that LAP Motorsports would become the exclusive worldwide partner for MINI in TCR and comes at a crucial time for the expansion of the TCR concept into North America.