Sebastian Priaulx has announced that he will be joining newly-formed AO Racing for the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The 21-year-old pilot will be joining the recently-formed, Chicago-based team founded by Gunnar Jeannette and technology entrepreneur PJ Hyett.
The 2021 Porsche Carrera Cup North America champion will be sharing the driving duties in the team’s new Porsche 911 GT3 R with Hyett for the bulk of the 11-round championship. Gunner Jeannette will join the driving line-up for the Endurance Cup events.
Harry Tinknell, formerly of the Mazda DPi programme and who raced in the FIA WEC with Dempsey-Proton Racing in 2022, will join the team for Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Sebastian Priaulx, who was teammate to Harry Tinknell at the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans where the #77 Porsche finished 14th in the LMGTE Am category, said on social media;
“I’m delighted to announced that I will be racing the new Porsche 911 GT3 R for the newly formed AO Racing in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship! Really looking forward to the year ahead.”
Team co-founder PJ Hyett co-founded GitHub, a cloud-based service that helps developers store and manage their code, which was sold to Microsoft in 2008. Hyett entered top-level sportscar racing in 2022 with outings in the Fanatec GT World Challenge America and at Bahrain for the final round of the FIA WEC where he finished second in the LMGTE Am class in the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche.
The 2023 IMSA season gets underway at Daytona on January 20 – 22 with the Roar Before The Rolex 24.
