Greystone GT and RAFA Racing Club are delighted to announce an entry into the all-new McLaren Trophy this season.
RAFA Racing Club founder Rafael ‘Rafa’ Martinez and rising British sportscar star Jem Hepworth will race in the McLaren 570S Trophy category of the series, which gets underway at Paul Ricard, France, on June 2-4.
Silverstone-based Greystone GT, who have already confirmed three entries in Artura Trophy class, will prepare and run the 570S Trophy for RAFA Racing Club and recently undertook a two-day test with Rafa and Jem at the Barcelona circuit.
El Salvador-born Rafa, who is now based in Houston, USA, began track driving in 2021 and made his race debut earlier this year in a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Super Tour event at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), at which he scored a magnificent double-podium result.
He founded the RAFA Racing Club to create a community for supercar trackday enthusiasts in the Texas and wider area and has since began working on a number of non-profit schemes to promote diversity and inclusion in business and sport.
British racer Jem is set to make history as the first female competitor in the McLaren Trophy as well as the first to race for Greystone GT.
The Devon driver, who is supported by RAFA Racing Club partner Motorsport Woman, achieved almost instant success as she won the British Endurance Championship in 2020 in her first season of circuit racing, and was a front-runner in the Praga Cup in 2021-22.
The new-for-2023 McLaren Trophy features classes for the fastest versions of both the Artura and the 570S race cars. Each round will support the GT World Challenge Europe at one of the continent’s best endurance racing circuits.
Every event features a pair of 50-minute races with pro-am line-ups allowed in each car and the emphasis placed on bronze-graded drivers like Rafa to make the crucial difference.
Rafa Martinez said: “I’m so excited to start the season. I bit the racing bug after I did my first trackday a couple of years ago and since making my race debut at COTA earlier this year – and winning – I thought ‘I just have to take this to the next level’, so that’s what we’re doing. The RAFA Racing Club is about taking people who love cars and driving and helping to give them the chance to become race drivers. Greystone GT do the same thing in the UK so having the two sides sharing the same philosophy makes it an ideal partnership. Promoting diversity and inclusion in motorsport is important to me so I’ve chosen Jem – already a championship-winning female driver – to race with me. She’s extremely quick, we get on well and I think we’ll have a good season.”
Jem Hepworth said: “I’m so excited about this season. My racing so far has been almost entirely in the UK so to have the chance to race the McLaren 570S with RAFA Racing Club and Greystone GT at some of the most iconic circuits in Europe is a great opportunity. Rafa’s very new to racing, but he’s done lots of miles in the McLaren so the key to the season will be getting ourselves up-to-speed as quickly as possible. We’re trying to cover off as many of the tracks as we can during pre-season testing to lessen the learning curve. His rate of progress has been very good so far, so we’ll aim to keep that going as we get towards the start of the season. It’s also awesome to be the first woman entered into the McLaren Trophy. A big part of my career involves helping women in motorsport through Motorsport Woman and we’re super-excited to work with Rafa Racing Club in the coming years to bring more girls into the sport.”
Mark McLoughlin, Greystone GT Team Principal, said: “We’re delighted to enter this partnership with RAFA Racing Club for the McLaren Trophy. Our philosophy has always been to help trackday enthusiasts follow their dream of becoming fully-fledged racing drivers and RAFA Racing Club follows much the same idea, so it’s a perfect fit. Rafa may be new to racing this year, but his COTA podiums in February show he’s a fast learner. Jem, meanwhile, is a proven championship-winner in this style of motorsport and one of the fastest young female GT racers around. The Barcelona test went extremely well so I’m sure that she and Rafa will go from strength to strength as the season progresses.”
