United Autosports keen to prove their staying power with big names at Le Mans 24-hour

United Autosports won the second-tier LMP2 class at the Le Mans 24-hour in the Covid season of 2020 and return to the French countryside on June 10-11 with two cars that are first and third in the World Endurance Championship and viewed by many rivals as the team to beat.

Based out of Normanton in Wakefield, the team that was launched by Leeds racing driver Richard Dean and future McLaren F1 ceo Zak Brown in 2009 continues to go from strength to strength.

But it is their long-held ambition to be taken on by one of sport’s grandest marques, as has been the case with a number of their competitors in the LMP2 class.

Dean feels sportscar racing is entering the dawn of a new golden age with the likes of Ferrari re-entering the top-tier Hyper-car class, and wants his successful Yorkshire team, which has repeatedly shown their championship calibre, to be taken along for the ride.

“It's very much an ambition of ours,” Dean confirmed to The Yorkshire Post before heading out to Le Mans to set up for the race early next week.

“We’ve been in lots of discussions, we’ve been very close and we’re still on the hunt for an opportunity.

“I’m very optimistic that we can take another step and represent a manufacturer, work as the operating team around the manufacturer’s programme.”

Any alliance with a major manufacturer would likely result in the name of United Autosports disappearing from the FIA World Endurance Championship series, where they were all-conquering champions in 2020.

But Dean regards it is the logical next step for an operation that takes over a 100 employees to Le Mans every year and proudly flies the flag for Yorkshire.

“For the manufacturers, say a Porsche … they can set up internally with trucks and kit and equipment, or they can look towards us in the LMP2 class, at Le Mans and the WEC. We are ready-made,” explained Dean.

“We’ve got the infrastructure, we’re quite nimble, we’re light on our feet in terms of operationally we know our way around the series.

“So that’s what we’re aiming for.

“More and more manufacturers are coming back into the sport, it’s a new golden age of sports car racing. Ferrari have launched a Hyper car project for Le Mans, so you’ve got Ferrari, Toyota, Peugeot, Lamborghini, BMW, Porsche, Cadillac.

“You could see by 2024, nine or 10 big manufacturers at Le Mans. We need more British manufacturers in the sport because we’d be an obvious choice for a British manufacturer, but that’s just how it is at the moment.

“We’ve got an eye on the future, where we want to grow.”