Potolicchio Leaving Starworks to Form Own Team

After two years with Starworks Motorsports, culminating in a 2012 season in Grand Am and the World Endurance Championship which brought a class win at Sebring and Le Mans, second overall at the Rolex 24, and a class championship in WEC, Venezuelan businessman and racer Enzo Potolicchio has decided to form his own Grand Am and WEC teams.

Speed.com reports that Potolicchio plans single-car entries in both series: a Coyote-Corvette in Grand Am, and an HPD-ARX-03b-Honda in WEC. The team named, driver line-ups and other details will be announced later.

Potolicchio joined Peter Baron’s Starworks team in 2011, its first year under that name (it had operated as SAMAX since 2005.) This year was the team’s first year in WEC and ALMS. Starworks’ successes were phenomenal for a team in a new series, but Potolicchio felt he could go further on his own.

“I needed to make a step forward in my racing career and with Peter, I felt that the conditions were not there for all of us,” Potolicchio told Speed.com. “He has his own ideas of how to run the team and I have mine.

“We were really successful together, but I now want to take it one step higher and get closer to manufacturers and try to put together a different program at a different level. And I need to do that by myself.

“I’m really thankful for Peter for everything we did together. I hope he feels the same way about me because we definitely were key to what happened and we complemented each other for all of the success we had.”

According to Speed.com Starworks plans to expand its WEC entry to two cars for 2013, while continuing with two cars in Grand Am. Ryan Dalziel has opted to remain with Starworks; other drivers are yet to be announced.