Drivex have reached an agreement with Marcelo Hahn and Allam Khodair and the Brazilian GT pairing will be back to drive the Drivex Mercedes AMG GT3 in the International GT Open. Both drivers made a positive European debut in 2017 and it facilitated an extension to 2018, in which the Drivex team expects to achieve further performance improvement.
On their debut in Europe, Hahn and Khodair achieved early success in International GT Open’s Pro-Am class. In such a way, Hahn stepped onto the podium four times with Khodair or his fellow countryman Alan Hellmeister, who temporarily replaced Allam when GT Open events clashed with other racing programmes. His list of achievements included a class win at Paul Ricard also securing a third place overall battling against world-class teams.
International GT Open’s near identical schedule of seven events will kick off at Estoril and later visiting Paul Ricard, Spa-Francorchamps, Hungaroring, Silverstone, Monza and Barcelona. Previously, Drivex will contest the Winter Series, which will take place in Barcelona and Le Castellet in February and March.
Marcelo Hahn: “I´m glad to race with Drivex one year more. We had a great experience in 2017 with the car and the team, achieving some podiums and a victory in Paul Ricard. On the other hand, we used most part of training sessions to improve our knowledge about the tracks, since I was a rookie in most part of then. So now, we have a huge expectative for this season and we are looking forward to fight for the title in Pro-Am.”
Allam Khodair: “Marcelo and I had race together between 2009 and 2013 in Brazilian GT and South-American GT Championship and since last year we moved to Europe to face a new challenge.The Int’l GT Open is growing year by year and after our first season learning about the car and the team work, we are certain that we are going to be able to compete for the title in Pro-Am class. It’s also important to remember that Marcelo Hahn had a great adaptation to the car and the tracks and it’s something really important to go beyond in 2018.”
Miguel Ángel de Castro: “It’s great to have Marcelo and Allam with us again this season in the International GT Open. They are an extremely competitive pairing in the Pro-Am class, as they already proved last year. They gained extra experience in Europe, put valuable experience at circuits, also know much better our Mercedes GT3 racer and of course our staff. We expect still more good things to come from 2018. Next weeks are particularly important as we need to put everything together during our Winter Series programme, going over all the little details in order to start as strong as possible in April.”
Source. Drivex S.L./Photo. John Patterson
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