Lizards flying again in PWC

There are few team and manufacturer associations more rooted than that of flying Lizard Motorsports and Porsche. Whether it was Grand-Am, IMSA or even the 24 Hours of Le Mans, for a decade Flying Lizard and Porsche were synonomous. For the past few years, though, the team was racing Audis in the United SportsCar Championship and helping run K-PAX Racing's effort in Pirelli World Challenge.

Now, with the new Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR and the incorporation of GT4 regulations in Pirelli World Challenge's GTS class, the Flying Lizard is once again emblazoned on the side of a race car from Weissach.

"A lot of people know our history and the championships that Flying Lizard has won in our partnerships with Porsche over the years, and we wanted to bring that back," says Darren Law, program manager for Flying Lizard Motorsports and formerly one of the drivers responsible for many of those wins. "Aside from fans asking for it nonstop, we've been talking to Porsche for a long time, and Porsche wanted to start this partnership up.

"The way we started it is we've got a great new program to bring up young drivers. We've established a program that will help bring up some new guys and put them through a professional program like our and give them an opportunity to show what they can do and potentially ... you never know ... somewhere down the line get into a factory program for Porsche."

Those young drivers are Nate Stacy, who won his first GTS race last year at only 16 and finished second in the championship, and young Spaniard Rodrigo Baptista. Baptista has the best finish so far, with a top-five in the season opener at St. Petersburg.

Stacy is transitioning form the heavy, front-engine Mustang he drove for Roush/KoHR Motorsports in 2016, and hasn't quite had the results that might be expected given his season last year. The Cayman, though, is new to the team as well as the drivers, so it may take some figuring out. In the meantime, they're getting some good exposure to the Porsche way of doing things.

"To start the year off, we took Nate over to Germany and I went with him, and we went though Porsche's fitness camp," Law explains. "We met with Dr. Frank Mayer, who runs the fitness camp for Porsche and Nate went through all these different exercises and training and learned about nutrition. We went to the Porsche factory and met with Uwe Brettel [Porsche's director of motorsports sales], did a tour of the Porsche factory in Weissach and the Porsche museum. So it's learning about the culture of Porsche and what it takes to get there."

Baptista is 20, and has run Porsche Cup in Brazil as well as some GT3 racing in Europe. His challenge is that he has not raced in the U.S. before, so every track is new to him. It's the same situation that K-PAX's GT champion, Alvaro Parente, faced last season, so Parente has been able to offer some advice. Despite that obstacle, Baptista seems to have adapted to the series quickly. "He's done a phenomenal job," says Law.

For Stacy, he sees the opportunity with Flying Lizard as a big boost to his future, especially as his former team isn't running in the series full time in 2017.

"Last year was a really successful season," says Stacy. "We finished second in the points for the drivers, won the team championship, won the manufacturers championship. But we got the call from Flying Lizard to come run with them in the new GT4. We were talking about the budget and everything for this year, and I had a conversation with my dad, and said, 'How could we say no to this?' I saw it as a step forward in my career."

Law says the GT4 platform is a great starting point for drivers to get used to the tracks and the format before moving to GT3. "Where they differ is really in the level of the drivers and the competition. Although it is very competitive in GT4, it's really more of a start-up program for these guys to learn. You get to GT3 and you're loaded with factory drivers, factory-supported programs and the cars get faster."

Stacy (below) and Baptista (top) are clearly learning the ropes, and with a team that knows winning like Flying Lizard, they should have a solid shot at some strong results in 2017.