BLANCPAIN: Senna and Derani picked for third Spa McLaren

Brazilians Bruno Senna and Pipo Derani will race an additional McLaren fielded by the Garage 59 squad in this month's Spa 24 Hours. They will drive a third 650S GT3 fielded by McLaren's in-house team together with Duncan Tappy, in the double-points Blancpain GT Series round on July 30-31.

The third car lines up alongside Garage 59's regular BGTS Endurance Cup entries for Rob Bell, Shane van Gisbergen and Come Ledogar, and McLaren junior drivers Alex Fontana, Struan Moore and Andrew Watson.

McLaren GT boss Andrew Kirkaldy explained that the entry of the third car had resulted from a desire to maximise the team's chances in the prestigious BGTS event.

"Spa has proved elusive for us in the past, so this proves how serious we are about trying to win it," he said. "Last year we had the pace to win, but had two accidents; that showed us we could have done with another car."

Senna has remained under contract to McLaren after contesting four of last year's Blancpain Endurance Series rounds with the factory-supported VonRyan team, but Kirkaldy explained that it wasn't possible to give him a full race program this season due to his Formula E and World Endurance Championship commitments.

Derani, winner of this season's Daytona and Sebring endurance rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, was introduced to McLaren by manager Philippe Dumas, who also looks after Ledogar.

"Philippe also brought us Kevin Estre [a McLaren factory driver in 2015], and anyone he brings seems to be very good," said Kirkaldy. "Pipo is in form and looking very impressive, so he's the sort of guy we want."

Former Bentley factory driver Tappy moves into the Garage 59 BGTS squad from its campaign in International GT Open series.

A total of 65 entries have been received for the Spa 24 Hours.

Originally on Autosport.com