Single Mazda DPi team entry for 2021

Mazda Motorsports’ two-car IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar championship DPi program will return next season with a one-car effort.

“We are going down to a single car next year,” Mazda Motorsports director Nelson Cosgrove told RACER. “We are going to run Oliver Jarvis and Harry Tincknell in the car, with Jonathan Bomarito coming in for the endurance races. We’re keeping Tristan Nunez involved in the program and using his talents both in the vehicle dynamics side, and also as a brand ambassador for us.”

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With both full-time driver line-ups from the Nos. 55 and 77 entries being retained in 2021, albeit in different roles and pairings, continuity is one positive Cosgrove found in the upcoming change.

“COVID-19 has made a significant dent globally in the auto industry, and racing, and we’re not immune to that,” he added. “We want to remain at two cars and fought to keep it that way, but will have to go with one and that’s how we will contest for the championship and think the familiarity of the group will be beneficial. So from a resource standpoint, we need to be smart with finances, and we’re also in the midst of evaluating LMDh.”

Offering the unused Mazda RT24-P to a customer program next year is unlikely.

“We haven’t talked about that,” Cosgrove said. “There are costs -- pretty big ones -- even if you aren’t running the car with spares and such, that would be involved, so I wouldn’t anticipate going down that route.”