Two-time Rolex 24 at Daytona class winners Alegra Motorsports will be returning to the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship in 2021, fielding a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in the GT Daytona category.
The team ran in the category until 2017 before switching to the Pirelli World Challenge in 2018 and transitioned into the GT World Challenge America last year.
In its final year in the championship, it won the Rolex 24 ay Daytona in GTD with a Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by team owner Carlos de Quesada, Michael de Quesada, Jesse Lazare, Daniel Morad and Porsche factory driver Michael Christensen.
It will now return to the class with a single car although expansion to a second car later in the year is under consideration. The team has already decided on its driver line-up and will unveil the drivers after the 2020 season has concluded.
“All of us at Alegra Motorsports first took notice of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 when we raced them for the win throughout the 2017 Rolex 24 At Daytona,” said de Quesada. “It was an impressive debut for the Mercedes-AMG GT3, and the entire Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing effort showed early on it is a well-supported and technically strong program.
We have spent 2020, even before the COVID-19 shutdown, as an evaluation year and can’t wait to return to competition with Mercedes-AMG.”
“I am very glad a well-known and established team like Alegra Motorsports has joined the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing family with our IMSA program,” added Stefan Wendl, head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing. “In the past 10 years, our customer racing program has grown in terms of several championship wins and single race victories.”
“So, we are happy to have a new team joining the program that is professional, has a lot of experience in GT3 racing and knows how to win races and championships.
We are very proud they are with Mercedes-AMG for the coming year, we wish them all the best of luck and offer our full support.”