Team: Eurasia Motorsport

Class: LMP2

Cars and Drivers

#35 Ligier JS P217-Gibson driven by Nobuya Yamanaka, Nicholas Foster and Roberto Mehri

BACKGROUND

Born “a long, long time ago” – he’s shy about his age – Mark Goddard was introduced to motorsports at a tender age by reading about it in the British car racing press. He made his parents take him to races and quickly got involved himself. As a youngster, Mark’s dream was to be a Formula 1 driver. “I raced in Formula Ford, then in F3 but I never made it to F1. I came within a hair’s breadth of my dream at Silverstone in 1993 as the first driver of a safety car at a Formula 1 Grand Prix.” After competing for 30 years, it was time to hand over the wheel. He set up his own team in 2004 in the Philippines, where he now lives.

ACHIEVEMENTS

As a driver, Mark Goddard won races in an array of championships in Europe, in both single-seaters and GTs. He moved to Asia in 1994, where he made his mark in a number of races in the F2000 championship and Formula Toyota before winning the F3 Asia in 2002. He then turned his focus to founding his Eurasia Motorsport team. “Today I can say that 10% of current F1 drivers have driven for us, including Daniel Ricciardo and Antonio Giovinazzi in Grands Prix races.”

AMBITIONS

“As a team, our aim is to always be as competitive as possible. In endurance, Le Mans is the holy grail. As an Asian team, we’re delighted to be here this year as it was far from certain given the current restrictions on international travel due to the health crisis."

Nobuya Yamanaka, Nicholas Foster and seasoned driver Roberto Mehri will take the wheel of the Ligier prototype.

“Obviously, we’re not looking to win this year. But it’s the typical endurance experience: the project was founded by a gentleman-driver which gives a professional driver the chance to race.”