Yesterday, it was announced that Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Lemarié’s team FEED Racing are set to merge its newly formed Euro Series operations with Dario Caso and Onofrio “Titi” Veneziani’s Racers Motorsport to form FEED Vict Racing, with the team are now preparing themselves to field four cars in the 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season.
Villeneuve and Lemarié had previously announced in December that they will be bringing their junior formula academy FEED Racing into the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series grid and initially was scheduled to field two cars for their debut season in the series.
FEED co-founders Villeneuve and Lemarié – who is set to be making his return to full-time competition after 16 years of retirement – are scheduled to be driving for the team in the EuroNASCAR PRO class, while 17-year old Belgian Simon Pilate is scheduled to become Lemarié’s EuroNASCAR 2 teammate this year.
“It was very important for us to partner with a consolidated organization in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series,” said Villeneuve on FEED and Racers’ merger to euronascar.com. “Vict Motorsport has experience, a winning resume and a great facility near Vallelunga, one of the tracks in the NWES calendar. They are also used to working with young talents and that perfectly resonates with the spirit of FEED Racing, so it makes perfect to partner with them in this new EuroNASCAR venture.”
“It is a very exciting feeling to race again and especially with Jacques as team mate,” said Lemarié to euronascar.com. “We wanted to work with a very professional structure and our discussion with Vict went very well. They won many races, they are very professional and super enthusiastic about the whole FEED Racing projet. Now I feel like a young driver waiting for the first test again!”
Racers Motorsport’s roots can be traced to two separate teams – Double T and Vict Motorsport. Double T entered the series in 2015 after Mauro Nocentini’s MRT team announced that Onofrio Veneziani will become the new co-owner of the team during the off-season. The new team, who competed as Double T by Nocentini, competed for two seasons under the Double T banner and managed to secure the Elite 2 title with Gianmarco Ercoli in 2015.
Vict Motorsport, led by then-Ferrari Challenge Italy veteran Dario Caso, debuted in the series in 2016 as a single-car operation that fielded the No. 8 Mustang for Dario Caso and Arianna Casoli. The team enjoyed moderate success in their debut year with Caso securing the Challenger Trophy and finishing 12th in the overall Elite 1 standings.
Despite this, Vict’s biggest headline in the series came when Caso flipped the team’s Ford Mustang during the Trofeo Angelo Caffi post-season exhibition event. Caso clipped the tire wall on the outside of the final corner and lost control of the No. 8 Mustang as he approached the start/finish line. Caso then crashed with the outside wall at such an angle that the car was sent on its roof. Despite the severity of the crash, he was uninjured and was able to compete for the rest of the exhibition weekend.
On the 2017 off-season, Vict and Double T would merge their operations to form Racers Motorsport. The team achieved their biggest success on the same year when Borja Garcia, a late-signing for the team, managed to secure a third-place finish in the Elite 1 championship and scored two of his four wins that year with Racers.
Racers also owned a junior academy in the form of NasKart karting championship. Formed by Veneziani in 2018, NasKart was formed with the goal to find the best young Italian talents to compete in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series. Its first – and so far only – year of competition in 2018 produced talents such as champion Moreno di Silvestre, runner-up Alessandro Brigatti, and Alessio Bacci.
“I’m really excited about this new joint venture with such a great reality as FEED Racing because we will work with world-class drivers like Jacques and Patrick but also because we have in common a strong will to help young drivers make their way in motorsports. I can’t wait to start this new adventure,” said Veneziani to euronascar.com.
The Racers side, who will be reviving the Vict banner that was last used in 2016, have announced that Caso and Alessandro Brigatti will be staying with the team under its new incarnation and it is expected that Racers will be bringing the team’s No. 8 and No. 9 entries to the newly formed FEED Vict alliance.
Caso is expected to be staying in the PRO class for his fifth season in the series in the former Racers No. 8 entry, while Brigatti, the 19-year old Italian who scored two podium finishes in Elite 2 last year, is expected to stay in the EuroNASCAR 2 class with ambitions to secure the title in the former Racers No. 9 entry.
“Being both a driver and a team owner, my position is pretty special and it will be a privilege to race together with drivers like Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Lemarie,” said Caso to euronascar.com. “It will also be very interesting to share with them the managing duties and work together on all aspects of the team. We’re eager to get things started and I think that it will be a positive experience and strong results will come.”
The 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will start with the traditional season opening round, the Valencia NASCAR Fest, on 25-26 April 2020 at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Disclaimer: Unless noted, all photos used in this article are courtesy of NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Stephane Azemard / Bart Dehaese.