Juno will be back on the tracks in 2017 in the Prototype Endurance Challenge. Juno had claimed the 2007 Prototype title with Rob Croydon.
The company had been founded by Ewan Baldry, now Ginetta Technical Director after the purchase of Juno by Ginetta.
Since then, Juno has been sold by Ginetta last year in August and is now a Portuguese make, Juno Racing Cars, based in Maia, near Porto. Juno was at Birmingham early in the year for the Autosport International Show to present the Juno CN16.
So, this company is going to bring back Juno on the tracks and has plans for the future, as Nuno Magalhaes, Juno Racing Cars CEO, has told Endurance-Info.
Nuno, could you please give me some details about the car? Is it the previous model? If so, has it been upgraded and to what extent?
Regarding overall looks, the car is essentially the same as the one that was seen on the tracks in 2015. The aerodynamics were slightly upgraded and the main difference is on the front splitter to enable the removal of the aluminium stay bars and to cope with the increase in front aerodynamic forces. We also managed to save 5 kg with these changes.
In terms of the chassis, we are testing the usage of carbon plates on our honeycomb, and the tests are going extremely well. We should be testing them on the 3rd race of the VdeV this year.
A few other bits and pieces were upgraded, and we are pretty confident that our car is going to be on the pace with the rest of the grid.
Our plans for this year are to do only 4 races to test the new changes on the car and compare our pace with the competition. We will also be using this car for extensive testing in other circuits in Europe to prepare the engine and gearbox package for our new carbon car that should be available for purchase in the middle of 2018.
How many Junos can we expect to see on the VdeV grids (or elsewhere) in 2017?
We are considering the possibility of having a second factory car for the last Portuguese round of the VdeV but obviously this is still just a thought.
We (factory team) do not have plans to race in any other championship this year. But there are Junos racing all around the world in 2017. From the top of my head, I can think of Alex Kenny and his dad in Australia, trying to get the tittle again this year; Dean McCarrol, David Glasson and John Ryall fighting for the win in New Zealand; Scott Cooper has a new car for the OSS in the UK; this is just to name a few of the people that keep driving Juno’s and winning championships all over the world.
Have you already some ideas of the teams and of the drivers?
In terms of drivers, we decided to look inside the Juno Racing Cars family to choose the drivers. Our Juno Agents for Australia and New Zealand, Alex Kenny and Dean McCarrol will be the main drivers of our factory team and they will team up in different rounds with drivers known to the Juno panorama like Sarah Reader (below on the Bugatti circuit in 2014), Joe Tucker, Gonçalo Araújo and others.
More pictures here