The appeal of motorsport in a lightweight British sports car isn’t hard to grasp: they’re thrilling to drive, the competition is close, and nobody knows the vehicles (and how to repair them) like the people who put them together. No wonder championships like the Caterham Academy and Ginetta GT Academy continue to draw such large grids. Now BAC is getting in on the act; in the week it marked 15 years of business, it has announced its first foray into motorsport with the Mono Cup.
The bad news, first off. It’s going to be a championship for the Middle East, so there’s no hope (for the moment) of seeing race-spec Monos at Donington or Brands Hatch. Organised with the Saudi Arabia Motor Federation, the six-month championship taking place this winter will visit Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where Jeddah Corniche - home of the Saudi GP - will act as the home circuit. Competitors will need only an International C licence (but probably quite a lot of money) to compete.
That’s not the usual motorsport is expensive quip, either. BAC is promising a ‘lifestyle refinement unheard of in one-make championships’ as well as ‘world-class support and hospitality services’ for the Mono Cup; it’s an arrive-and-drive set-up, so nobody will be driving their car to and from the event and staying in a Saudi Travelodge. Everything - car setup, logistics and management - will be taken care of by BAC Motorsport and its partners in the region, including championship coordinators Saudi Motorsport Company. All the competitors have to do is pay their money, turn up, and beat everyone else.
BAC says the championship will be the fastest one-make racing series in the world (we’d previously have said this was Porsche Supercup, which this will definitely be faster than - speak now if you think different). It states that the Mono Cup ‘bridges the gap between GT racing and formula racing, carving out a new but critically important niche in motorsport.’ Which sounds nothing if not hugely entertaining.
Precise details for the Cup car haven’t been revealed yet, but BAC reckons that the racer has been ‘extensively re-engineered and designed exclusively for the championship’, the result being an ‘unmatched driving experience’. Quite what can be done to a car of such performance potential as the Mono to make it even more circuit capable isn’t clear, particularly as this car appears to use the (lightly) treaded Pirelli Trofeo R found on the road car, but we’re jolly excited to find out.
The Mono Cup has been announced at the Seven Concours in Riyadh, ahead of the F1 race this weekend. Neill Briggs, BAC co-founder and director of product development, said: "The Mono Cup embodies BAC's unrelenting dedication to high-performance driving; we are supremely proud that we can now take our values, passion and expertise honed within the automotive arena and apply that to motorsports. Like our road-legal supercars, the Mono Cup car will deliver a driving experience unlike anything else across the world.” Expect additional details to follow over the summer.
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