Tom McLennan confirms move to Carrera Cup for 2024
Tom McLennan will make the step up to Carrera Cup in 2024 with championship-winning team Earl Bamber Motorsport.
After a season and a half of racing in the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge – the feeder class to Carrera Cup – the 19-year-old Queenslander is excited to make the leap into the latest-generation 992 Porsche.
McLennan will race the #81 EBM entry, carrying the familiar blue and purple Macpro Properties colours that have adorned his recent Porsches.
McLennan made great progress during his time in the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge last year, finishing 10th overall in the standings and claiming a best result of third at Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania.
McLennan will begin a testing program with EBM shortly ahead of the first of eight championship rounds, kicking off as a support class to the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix on the streets of Albert Park.
The championship will then make its first trip to New Zealand for Round 2 at Taupo, a circuit that McLennan knows thanks to his season in the Formula Regional Oceania in 2023.
Rounds at the popular Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin, Sydney Motorsport Park, Sandown, Bathurst, Gold Coast and the Adelaide street track makes for one of the best racing calendars in Australian motorsport.
All races can be seen live on Foxtel and Kayo, plus selected Free-to-Air races on the Seven Network.
Tom McLennan
Driver, #81 Earl Bamber Motorsport
“I’m definitely excited. It will be a big, challenging year,” said McLennan.
“Compared to Sprint Challenge, it will certainly be a different playing field. The competition will be harder, but I’m really looking forward to stepping up my game and racing on cool street tracks, including the Grand Prix at Albert Park and the Gold Coast.
“It’s also great to re-sign with EBM. I really enjoyed my Time with them in Sprint Challenge so to make the step up with them to Carrera Cup was a logical choice. They are a great team.
“EBM won both the Pro and Pro-Am class in Carrera Cup, plus Sprint Challenge with Marco Giltrap last year. I know I’ll have a good set of team-mates that I can learn from as I build up confidence in the new cars.
“The 992 Porsche race car is a whole new car compared to what I’ve been racing. It will take some time to get to grips with it, but I have a few test days in the lead up. I haven’t driven one of them yet, so can’t wait to strap myself in and see how different the 992 is compared to the 991.2 that I’ve raced in Sprint Challenge.”
Ben Jenkins
Team manager, Earl Bamber Motorsport
“It’s great to have Tom step up to Carrera Cup this year,” said Jenkins.
“When he first joined our team last year, the goal was that he wanted to be ready for Carrera Cup and we feel he is more than ready for it.
“As the year went on, we saw some great progress. At Bathurst, he ran close to the top five all weekend, and that’s no mean feat in what was the most competitive Sprint Challenge seasons on record.
“No doubt, it’s a big step up, but he’ll have a strong set of team-mates to work with and learn from.
“The 992s are a different concept to what he has been racing before. It has a completely different front end and runs on a different tyre, but he’ll be able to adapt to that pretty quickly with some of his open wheel racing experience. And he should get plenty of testing miles to get him up to speed.”