LAP Motorsports planning TCR Mini with support from Mini USA

US team LAP Motorsports is planning to build a TCR specification Mini for 2018 with support from Mini USA.

“We’ve submitted all of our paperwork to TCR, we have all of the approvals from MINI USA,” said team principal Luis Perocarpi to sportscar365.com.

The team began designing the car early this year and has completed the brake system and gearbox. The choice of Mini model is still not set though.

“We started the project thinking we’d run the hard-top four-door, but that’s a bit of a challenge because the car is shorter than what the regs require, although we do understand that there are several cars in TCR that haven’t met that requirement,” said Perocarpi.

“MINI still has other cars like the Clubman that fits right into the regs… At the end of the day, what does MINI want to do? [TCR cars] are built to regs so every car will be competitive so we’re not worried about which car we build.”

LAP Motorsports is currently running the MINI John Cooper Works team in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Street Tuner (ST) Class IMSA series in the US.