The New Ginetta G50's Maiden Race

The new Ginetta G50 has gained a provisional entry for the FIA GT4 race at Nogaro, France this weekend.

The entry comes in the wake of successful testing at Croft circuit last week as the prototype G50 car (below) prepares to lay the foundations of a new single-make Championship for 2008, 'The Ginetta G50 Cup'.

“We want to get as many miles on the car as we can, and learn as much as we can as soon as we can. There is no better test than to put the car through a real race weekend” said LNT Automotive MD Richard Dean.

“It’s always been our intention to eventually take this car up to GT4 level, it’s just the opportunity has arisen for it to happen ahead of schedule – sooner rather than later.”

The GT4 class was introduced to GT racing this year for Sportscars that are more closely matched to their road-legal counterparts than the GT3 class.

The G50 will race in Nogaro against the likes of the Aston Martin N24, Nissan 350Z and Porsche Cayman. 2006 Le Mans class-winner Lawrence Tomlinson will take to the wheel.

“We’re not going with the expectaion we’ll be running at the front, the car didn’t even exist 7 months ago, we are ahead of schedule but perhaps not competitively race ready” continued Dean. “We just want to put the car through its paces and learn”.

The £35,000 G50 car has been developed in-house at the new Ginetta factory in Leeds, headed by Lawrence Tomlinson’s LNT Automotive outfit. Developed entirely from the ground up in just 7 months, its one-make Championship will be launched in 2008 as a celebration of the Ginetta marques’ 50th anniversary.

The Ginetta G50 Championship will run alongside its existing Texaco Havoline G20 Championship on the SRO British F3 / GT package and is aimed to provide a stepping-stone for budding GT sportscar team’s and drivers on a sensible budget.