New squad to field Huracan in Aus GT

The Australian GT Championship will welcome a new team next season with the launch of Zagame Motorsport.

The outfit plans to field a Lamborghini Huracan for customer Adrian Deitz and co-driver Cameron McConville in the Australian Endurance Championship (AEC) and the Formula 1 Grand Prix round of the Australian GT Championship.

McConville partnered gentleman driver Deitz in a Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 in the AEC this year.

The team is the brainchild of businessman Bobby Zagame, owner of the Zagame Automotive Group.

The organisation owns Aston Martin, Audi, Ferrari, Maserati, McLaren, Lamborghini, Lotus and Rolls-Royce dealerships in Victoria.

Zagame Automotive Group has recently become the McLaren motorsport dealer for Australasia.

Based in Richmond, Melbourne, the new squad has enlisted the services of McConville who will act as general manager alongside his racing commitments.

McConville will be joined at the operation by experienced former Holden Racing Team boss Rob Crawford in a team manager capacity.

Crawford enjoyed a successful stint in Supercars guiding the HRT to four Bathurst wins and two championships before leaving the Clayton operation in 2011.

More recently he has been working with the FFF Racing Lamborghini squad in GT Asia.

Zagame Motorsport has also recruited Paul Forgie, who guided Marcos Ambrose to back-to-back Supercars titles, to assist on the engineering side.

The team is expected to take delivery of the Huracan, ordered via official distributor Trofeo Motorsport, before the end of the year ahead of a likely first test in late January.

While focussing on its Lamborghini entry, plans are underway to add a second car to its GT3 ranks and a McLaren 570 GT4 to its roster.

“We would like to run two GT3 cars and two GT4 machines out of our workshop,” McConville told Speedafe.com.

“I’m genuinely excited about this new project and you couldn’t really script a better role for me really.

“I get to go racing and deal with some really high end brands.

“I want to be involved in this from its outset and for the next five years and beyond.”

The outfit is also keen to field a Bathurst 12 Hour entry in the 2018 edition of the Mount Panorama endurance race.

“Part of our strategy is to have a car on the Bathurst 12 Hour grid and we would love to run a GT3 and GT4 car in 2018,” he added.

Alongside its GT plans, Zagame Motorsport aims to run customers in trackdays and other motorsport series.