Ecurie Ecosse sticks with BES

The Ecurie Ecosse team will return to the Blancpain Endurance Series in 2015 in a bid to improve on its third position in the Pro-Am class last year.

The historic Scottish entrant's BMW Z4 GT3, which will be racing in the series for a fourth consecutive season, will again be run by Barwell Motorsport. Team regular Andrew Smith is taking a sabbatical from contemporary racing and will be replaced by 24-year-old Briton Devon Modell alongside Olly Bryant and Alasdair McCaig, son of Ecosse boss Hugh.

Modell joins the lineup after finishing second in the GT4 in last year's British GT Championship with the TF Sport Aston team and a strong GT3 debut in the BES finale at the Nurburgring with the Black Falcon Mercedes team.

Bryant, who was part of the Ecosse line-up that finished second in class at the blue-riband Spa 24 Hours BES round in 2014, said: "We tested Devon at Donington Park in October and he was straight on the pace.

"We actually signed him a while ago, but we needed to get all the elements of the programme in place before we announced everything. We're looking forward to another competitive season and are hoping to improve on last year's position in the championship."

Bryant revealed that he and his team-mates still had ambitions to take Ecurie Ecosse back to the Le Mans 24 Hours, a race the original incarnation of the team won with Jaguar in 1956 and '57 (RIGHT).

"The Le Mans ambition is definitely still there and we are in the last year of the Z4's life cycle, so we're looking at what we will do in 2016," he explained. "We'd love to do a GTE program around Le Mans, but I don't know if that is realistic."

Barwell will run a second BMW in the Pro-Am Cup this year under the Team Russia banner. This car, which will again be driven by Jonny Cocker, Leo Machitski and Timur Sardarov, is moving over from the GTC class of the European Le Mans Series.

Barwell boss Mark Lemmer explained that the BES rules on driver gradings offered a lineup of one gold and two bronze-rated drivers a better chance than the ELMS.

Ecurie Ecosse is also defending its British GT crown with Marco Attard and Alexander Sims, while Barwell will run a second car for Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw.

Originally on Autosport.com