Robert Megennis will complete RLR MSport’s European Le Mans Series (ELMS) 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps line-up.
The American young gun will take the seat vacated by Ryan Harper-Ellam, partnering ELMS podium finishers Malthe Jakobsen and James Dayson in the #15 Ligier JSP320 LMP3 in the Belgian leg of the truncated 2020 season (7-9 August).
Like many young racing drivers, Megennis learned his trade in karts before embarking on a successful junior single-seater career that began in the F1600 Formula F Championship Series.
Megennis has been on the ‘Road to Indy’ ever since; the New York-based driver ended his first of two USF2000 seasons as ‘Rookie of the Year’ and collected silverware for a race win and three podium finishes before graduating to the Pro Mazda Championship, in which he racked up another six podiums to finish fifth in the final points standings.
In 2019, a strong rookie season in the Indy Lights Championship most notably yielded a win in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, pole position for the ‘Freedom 100’ at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a double podium at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Megennis was scheduled to return to Indy Lights for a second consecutive year but will now cross the Atlantic for his first taste of endurance sportscar racing.
The American will join RLR MSport for the second round of the compressed 2020 ELMS season at Spa, where he will partner fellow USF2000 graduate Dayson and Danish teenager Jakobsen, who both raced to the podium in the 4 Hours of Le Castellet earlier this month (17-19 July).
It will be the first time Megennis has driven anything other than a single-seater and only his fifth race outside of North America, having contested the 2017-18 MRF Challenge, and he will also achieve a lifelong ambition of competing at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
“I’m super excited about driving something new in a completely different type of racing, especially at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps,” said Megennis. “I’ve never competed in an endurance race so I’m going into the weekend with an open mind and no expectations, but I have a ton of confidence in myself, my new teammates James (Dayson) and Malthe (Jakobsen) were really quick last time out in Le Castellet, and RLR MSport has also had a lot of success.
“The Ligier JSP320 LMP3 might be very different to the open-wheelers I’ve driven before, but I have a good group of people around me and I’m going to soak up as much as possible, using guidance from RLR MSport and my teammates to get the most out of the car. From what I’ve seen of the ELMS, the racing is pretty intense and there’s a lot of battling, which will be fun. I’m particularly looking forward to taking on Eau Rouge – it’s something I’ve dreamed of since the age of ten, when I mounted a framed photo of F1 cars going through the corner on my bedroom wall!”
