Mazda Motorsports announced that its new “Mazda Team Joest” will become the factory Mazda Prototype team in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, beginning with the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Joest partnered with Audi for Le Mans races before ending the relationship last year.

Joest has 16 victories in Le Mans alone, and countless more in other races including Sebring, the Petit Le Mans and Daytona. Mazda, on their side, is the “the third-most successful manufacturer in the history of North American professional sports car racing” and the only Asian automaker to take overall victory at Le Mans.

The new team is replacing the Mazda and SpeedSource Race Engineering partnership. Joest will set up a North American headquarters in Atlanta and the team will start testing the Mazda RT24-P for next season soon. The production-based 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine will be tuned to produce approximately 600 hp by Advanced Engine Research, while Multimatic will continue to work closely with the team on final testing and simulation.