Photo: Davey Euwema
Tigani Motorsport’s first international outing in the Gulf 12 Hours is part of a “natural progression” for the Australian squad according to team owner Nathan Tigani, having recently also announced a Pro entry into the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
The Wollongong-based operation is one of seven teams representing Mercedes-AMG in this weekend’s Abu Dhabi enduro, fielding a Pro-Am entry for Jayden Ojeda, Brendon Leitch, Sergio Pires and Marcel Zalloua.
First founded in 2021, the team has undergone significant growth recently, having been named Mercedes-AMG’s official service provider for the Australia-New Zealand region in the wake of Triple Eight Race Engineering’s impending move to Ford.
The entry into the Gulf 12H is part of an ambitious growth plan for Tigani, who stated that racing outside of Australia was part of the team’s ambition since it was founded in 2021.
“To be honest, it’s always been in the pipeline for me to go international and race the big boys,” Tigani told Sportscar365.
“Luxuriously enough, we have a customer base that want to come and do these types of events now.
“Australian GT racing is booming at the minute and it’s opening up the new market for us down there.
“The good thing for us is what we race there, we can ship and race here, so it makes it pretty streamlined.
“There’s nothing exuberant that we will do differently here that we won’t do back home so it kind of makes it an easy enough step to do that.
“It’s just been a natural progression. I guess getting the right people around the organisation has been a massive influence on that trajectory.
“Matt Harvey, who’s our technical director, he’s an Aussie that lives abroad and has worked for all the major GT3 teams and across the globe.
“So it was natural for us when he came on board to work with us in Australia through the Jayden Ojeda connection to kind of entertain the idea of lifting our team and bringing it here.
“He could see what we were doing in Australia and how we grew and what we’re growing into. He couldn’t see why it wasn’t achievable to go and do that overseas.
“You always have aspirations or goals or ideologies of where you want to go.
“Sometimes it seems that is in the realms of unachievable, but the last couple years a lot has been happening with us and everything’s possible. So yeah, we just keep building.”
According to Tigani, the Abu Dhabi outing also “absolutely” serves as an opportunity for the team to measure itself against a number of top-level European squads, including the likes of GetSpeed, Winward Racing, Garage 59 and Optimum Motorsport.
“The end goal is to go to these big events, where it’s a purely Pro-focus entity,” said Tigani.
“Commercially, at the minute, we’re not there yet. But this is why we’re here.
“It’s one of the closest regions to get to where we can do it. This is where we’re going to see where we stack up.
“I hold Australian GT in a pretty high level of regard. I think it’s prepared us well for for this event, but we’ll see.”
When asked for his target for the event, the Australian stated that the No. 44 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo should be considered a contender for victory in Pro-Am.
“Look, definitely the expectation is to perform and to win in class definitely,” said Tigani.
“The driver lineup we have here is solid. Jayden’s factory, Brendon is well versed in every manufacturer and Sergio and Marcel, they want a result.
“That’s why they’re here, so that’s why they’re making the investment. So the idea is to win definitely class and see how far we can get up the overall order.”
Tigani Eyeing IGTC Appearances Outside Bathurst
Looking towards the future, Tigani expressed an ambition to expand his team’s efforts beyond the Bathurst 12H and contest more of the Intercontinental GT Challenge calendar.
“The goalposts keep shifting at the minute with what’s achievable and what what we want to do,” he said.
“But I think the next set of goals we want to achieve is to do something like the IGTC.
“Those kind of big endurance events on those big amazing tracks against the best teams in the world.
“That is kind of where I want to end up and where I’d like to head. I guess that’s kind of the end goal.
“For GT racing, they’re the big events on the world stage with those guys. One aspect is to get there and the other one is to be competitive.”
Davey Euwema is Sportscar365’s European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.
