Bedford-based TDF Engineering and Dutch single seater stalwarts Geva Racing have teamed up for a joint assault on Creventic’s new TouringCar Endurance Series with a newly built Ginetta G50 GT4. The Anglo-Dutch team will race under the TDF.GEVA banner and starts its inaugural GT-campaign at the Silverstone 24 hours on April 1st and 2nd.
The programme flows from a long-standing relationship between the two companies running F1 machinery in the BOSS GP Series and a solitary foray in the Barcelona 24 hours with a Seat Leon Cup Racer. It was this event that left all in involved thirsting for more endurance racing. “TDF and Geva have been working together for years now on all sorts of F1 machinery but it was the Barcelona race that gave us the idea of really getting stuck in”, explains TDF-director Matt Faulks. “We then looked at a programme that would give us the opportunity to race all over Europe and race for victories and the Ginetta gives us just that”
Spearheading the new project will be Melroy Heemskerk and Sven van Laere. Dutchman Heemskerk, 28, is a former Dutch and Benelux Formula Ford champion who, after making his victorious debut at Geva Racing in 2009, has been managed by team boss Gert Valkenburg and raced successfully in Formula Palmer Audi, VdeV, Dutch GT4 and the FIA GT Series. “Melroy is the ideal driver for a new project like this. His feedback is second to none, he has the speed and the maturity to tackle a long-distance race and he knows the Ginetta well”, adds Valkenburg who’s eponymous team will make its long awaited switch to GT-racing. “We’ve been successful in single-seaters, taking over thirty titles in national and international championships but the chance to move into endurance racing with the guys at TDF was too good to pass up. It’s a new challenge and something we relish as a new team.”
Successful Belgian gentleman racer Sven van Laere joins Heemskerk in the Ford V6-powered Ginetta GT4 after racing with the TDF.GEVA team in the Barcelona 24 hours. “I’ve known Gert Valkenburg for over twenty years and really enjoyed working with Matt Faulks and the guys at TDF. They are all former F1 engineers and mechanics so they really know their stuff, but most importantly they do it with a laugh”, smiles Van Laere.
The team tested the newly-built Ginetta at its Bedford base last Friday with both Heemskerk and Van Laere behind the wheel while also trying different drivers to race alongside the two full-season signings. “We’re happy with the way the car has come together and right now we are in the process of putting together the driver line-ups for each of the five TCES-races. We had a great day shaking down a car that we’ve put all our F1 know-how in and we can’t wait for the season to start”, concludes team owner Matt Faulks.
