Pruett and Rojas will return to defend their title
The Grand-Am Daytona Prototype championship winning Ganassi Racing team has announced its 2012 plans along with its driver lineup for the Rolex 24 and the balance of the season.
The team will continue its alliance with BMW and with Dinan, the builder of the S62 V8 that has powered the team’s Riley-BMW to two consecutive championships.
Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas, who have won three Grand-Am driving titles with Ganassi in the last four seasons, return to the team for their sixth consecutive year. At Daytona, where the team will once again enter two cars, Pruett and Rojas will be joined by Joey Hand, ALMS GT driver champion in 2011 with BMW Team RLL, and Graham Rahal, who drives for Ganassi’s Indy Car team. The foursome won the Rolex 24 in 2011. (Text continues after photo)
The team’s second prototype at Daytona will once again be driven by the 2011 Rolex 24 second-place finishers, including Ganassi Indy Car racers Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti (the defending Indy Car champion), along with Earnhart-Ganassi NASCAR drivers Jamie McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya.
BMW NA president Ludwig Willisch says “BMW of North America, LLC is proud to extend our support of Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates for the 2012 Grand-Am Rolex season and the 50th Rolex 24 At Daytona. ‘Motor’ is not only our middle name, but BMW M engines are literally the heart, and racing is the soul of our brand.”
Ganassi’s announcement of its driver lineup is the first of several anticipated in December. Bobby Rahal has told racer.com that both Joey Hand and Bill Auberlen will return to pilot the BMW Team RLL M3s in the American Le Mans Series (this changed on December 15 when Hand's move to the DTM Series was announced); their co-drivers will most likely be announced soon after BMW Motorsport has confirmed the balance of its DTM driver team. Turner Motorsport should also announce its Rolex GT series driver lineup soon. Watch this space.—Brian S. Morgan, motorsports editor, bmwcca.org.
