Iron Lynx Open to Mercedes-AMG Expansion After First Year

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Iron Lynx team principal Andrea Piccini is open to the idea of a future expansion of the team’s Mercedes-AMG efforts to other series outside of the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series, but stressed that the squad is ‘focused on a single project’ for the first year of its new partnership.

The Italian squad switched brands over the winter, aligning itself with Mercedes-AMG and making its debut with the German manufacturer during last weekend’s WEC season opener in Qatar.

Additionally, it is also set to field a single car in ELMS ahead of a three-car entry in the 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans later this year.

In previous years, Iron Lynx often competed in a wide variety of series, with a presence in WEC and ELMS coming in addition to entries in the likes of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup.

However, Piccini told Sportscar365 that the team has purposefully decided on a narrowed-down approach to its first season with Mercedes-AMG, having previously worked through a “very tight” turnaround to be ready for the start of the season.

“Honestly, the late switch we had this year made us think that was better to focus on less things and on a single project,” Piccini said.

“So both ELMS and WEC, basically running the same car, the same rules, the same tires. So having a very limited time to get prepared for the season, it was best to just focus on a single type of racing.

“For sure, for the future, we would like to go back and increase our program.

“There’s an idea to go back to United States where we still have a workshop, we have a base, which for this year is frozen, but the operations are ready to go there if we decided to go back to America.

“There’s a very large customer base in GT World Challenge so honestly Mercedes is already well represented there. So let’s see also speaking with them whether it makes sense to probably dedicate to different championships or new challenges.

“But what I realized honestly getting into the Mercedes family is that they really have a large base of customers and all over the world there’s a lot of cars, a lot of people who want to race with Mercedes.

“And honestly from where we were coming, this is a huge difference because we had a lot of contacts, a lot of requests from customers who want to race with us.

“This is honestly very positive because it opens a lot of doors.

“Time has been very short, so as I said, we wanted to focus on two programs, well done, but already through the season, I think we will start building on probably something else for the future.”

Piccini explained that he views the first year with Mercedes-AMG as an opportunity to establish a solid base and working relationship with the new brand, entering the partnership with a “very humble approach” despite its past successes.

“For sure, we’ve done good things in the past, we have quite a lot of experience in many different championships,” he said.

“But Mercedes has a very large customer base and there are a lot of good teams [who are] very experienced and [at a] really high level running the Mercedes.

“So to be able to be at the level of these teams, we will need to learn the car, build up our own experience with the car and then probably next year we will be ready to fight with these teams who have a lot more experience than we have.”

Part of what Piccini hopes will be a “long term relationship” with Mercedes-AMG is the introduction of an all-new GT3 car, which is slated for a customer debut in 2027.

“Of course, when you decide to do a switch, you look at the long term perspective,” said Piccini.

“So for sure when we started talking to Mercedes, this was one of the arguments to understand when the new car would have came in.

“So for us, it’s for sure of interest because despite we’ve been somehow forced in the last year to change manufacturer a couple of times.

“This is for sure not the intention for the future. If we build the relationship, we would like this relationship to be a long term relationship.”

Mercedes-AMG Plotting Summer Rollout for New GT3 Challenger

Stefan Wendl, Mercedes-AMG’s head of customer racing, also gave an update on the development of its all-new GT3 platform, which is understood to be based on the Mercedes‑AMG GT 63 production car.

Wendl previously stated that the car is scheduled to “hit the test track for the first time in 2025,” but told Sportscar365 in Qatar that the plan is for the car to be rolled out “around the middle of the year.”

That would place a first on-track run for the car in the summer months, with Wendl indicating that such a test is likely to take place in either June or July.

“It’s also an exciting process also to keep everybody [involved], to put all the knowledge we collected over the past years and from the car,” Wendl added.

“We have a successful competitive car, and it’s not easy to replicate replicate this and make it better.”