Walkinshaw completes sports car move

Sean Walkinshaw will make a full-time switch to sportscar racing in 2015 with a full programme in the Blancpain GT Series with the German MRS Nissan team.

The son of the late Tom Walkinshaw — a successful sports car driver in his own right, as well as the mastermind of Jaguar's Group C campaigns of the 1980s and '90s — will contest the Blancpain Sprint Series and the Blancpain Endurance Series driving a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 for the MRS GT-Racing squad.

The move follows ex-Euroformula Open racer Walkinshaw's sports car try-out in the Gulf 12 Hours race at the Yas Marina circuit last December at the wheel of a GT3-spec Ferrari 458 Italia.

The 21-year-old had targeted a deal in the BSS for 2015, but has expanded his original agreement with MRS to encompass the five Blancpain enduros.

"I have been talking to MRS for quite a while about the sprints, but a couple of weeks ago we managed to come up with a deal for the endurance races as well," he told AUTOSPORT. "This is a great opportunity for me and an exciting challenge because of the level of the teams and the drivers in Blancpain this season."

Walkinshaw will share the solo MRS Blancpain entry in the pro class with fellow Briton Craig Dolby, who has been test driver for the JRM Group that builds the Nissans in Europe for the past year. A third driver for the enduros has yet to be announced.

MRS, which has switch to Nissan from the McLaren MP4-12C for this season, will have a fleet of three GT-R NISMOs for its programs in Blancpain and the German ADAC GT Masters series.

Nissan GT Academy winner Florian Strauss, who raced with the RJN squad in BES last year, will be one of the drivers in Masters.

Originally on Autosport.com