Dyson team severs ties with Bentley

The Dyson Racing Team returned to victory lane and scored several podium finishes while competing in the Pirelli World Challenge series in 2015. Dyson Racing campaigned a pair of Bentley Continental GT3 race cars in partnership with Bentley Motors, Ltd. and under the banner of Team Bentley Dyson Racing in the final year of the team's two-year contract to represent Bentley in North American motorsport.

Highlights for 2015 included a dominant win by Chris Dyson at Road America in Elkhart Like, WI; and an impressive second place by the New Yorker from deep in the field at Long Beach, CA. Dyson also added third places at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and Detroit. Butch Leitzinger scored second and third place finishes in Canada, while Guy Smith competed in the season's three final race weekends and scored a podium finish at Miller Motorsports Park, where a year earlier he had scored Bentley's first-ever North American overall race win.

Chris Dyson had spent 2014 overseeing the launch of Bentley Team Dyson Racing program on the team side and his own driving was limited to endurance prototype racing in Europe. In 2015, Dyson was back to full strength and early in the season established himself as the lead driver for the 2015 North American DRT effort. "As a driver, I have to say this was one of my most enjoyable seasons," said Dyson, whose fifteen-year professional career has been behind the wheel of sports racing and open-wheel cars. "From a personal standpoint I worked really hard to prepare myself for returning to full-time competition this year and I ended up doing more total racing events this year than I ever have. I've probably never enjoyed racing more."

"I came into GT3 racing with an open mind and I was ready to adapt to the discipline," Dyson added. "It was great to get a chance to race a proper GT car, particularly one as sophisticated and well-balanced as the Continental GT3. And I really enjoyed the sprint-race format and working with such wonderful engineers and of course my own guys. The racing in the Pirelli World Challenge is relentless, and it was personally very gratifying to run up front with such a deep field every weekend. I'm very grateful for the racing opportunities I had this year."

At the conclusion of the factory Bentley program, Dyson Racing team founder and CEO Rob Dyson offered his thoughts.

"I'm proud of what the team accomplished over the past two seasons," Dyson said. "It was an honor for us to directly represent the Bentley brand in North America. Bentley is an absolutely first-class organization and it was a pleasure working with our new friends. It was satisfying helping them highlight the performance qualities of both the Continental GT3 and all the other terrific cars that Bentley markets in North America."

Dyson Racing is in the process of evaluating options for the 2016 racing season and will announce its plans in the new year.