On the heels of its thrilling victory in last month’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R has announced 23-year-old British driver Alex Lynn will join its full-time co-drivers and brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor for next month’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and October’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
Lynn completed his second season in 2016 with the French DAMS team in the GP2 Series – the recognized stepping stone to Formula One – and is also a development driver for the renowned Williams Martini Racing F1 team.
In 43 GP2 starts the past two seasons, Lynn recorded five race wins, two pole positions and three fastest race laps, and finished sixth in the final point standings both years.
“I am delighted to be making my IMSA debut with the Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team – the racing team and carmaker who both have such an incredible heritage and passionate desire to win,” said Lynn as he joins the team to replace veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli, who retired after last month’s thrilling victory in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona alongside the Taylor brothers and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon. “I would like to sincerely thank (team owner) Wayne (Taylor) and Max for trusting me to join Ricky and Jordan in this incredible racecar. I look forward to learning a lot from the entire team and playing my part in building on the fantastic recent result at Daytona. I fully expect us to be fighting for wins at Sebring and Road Atlanta.”
Lynn began his single-seater career in Formula Renault UK, dominating the 2011 championship with a record 12 wins in 20 starts. He was subsequently named British Club Driver of the Year at the 2011 Autosport Awards. He moved up to British F3 the following year and finished fourth before progressing to the prestigious FIA European F3 Championship in 2013, claiming third in the standings as the highest finishing rookie. He ended the season with a dominant victory in the coveted Macau F3 Grand Prix. In 2014, Lynn wrapped up the GP3 title with a record points margin and became the first Englishman to claim the title before moving up to GP2 in 2015 and 2016.
While the bulk of his career has been spent in open-wheel cars, he is certainly no stranger to prototypes, having contested the Japan, Shanghai and Bahrain rounds of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship with the Manor Racing LMP2 team, scoring fastest race laps, lap records, pole positions and fastest stint averages along the way. He also co-drove to a second-place finish in the United Autosports LMP3 entry at December’s Gulf 12-Hour race in Abu Dhabi, qualifying on the pole and recording the fastest stint average.
“We welcome Alex to the Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team with hopes of picking up where we left off at Daytona,” said Wayne Taylor, who will be operating without the services of Angelelli in the cockpit for the first time since 1999. “Alex is a very polished, young competitor who is cut from the same mold as Ricky and Jordan and Max in his ability to fight his way to the front and to stay there in seemingly any kind of racecar. He will be an ideal representative of this team, for Konica Minolta, for Cadillac, for all our partners.”
The 65th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring is set for Saturday, March 18, at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway, where the team also participate in a two-day test Feb. 23 and 24. The 20th annual Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta is set for Oct. 9.