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From Wheels mag:
GT: Betty has some decisions to make
THE 2015 season has barely begun and Betty Klimenko, the wealthy team owner of the Erebus GT sports car team (and the Erebus AMG V8 Supercar team), is already thinking about 2016.
Klimenko and husband Daniel, who runs the GT program, will be doing their usual double-barrelled act this season contesting the two series with AMG products – the E63 AMG in the Australian V8 Supercars Championship and the Mercedes SLS 63 AMG GT3 in the Australian GT Championship.
Speaking to Wheels at last weekend’s Bathurst 12 Hour about the raft of new GT cars coming on stream this year and next, including a replacement for the gullwing SLS 63 AMG GT3 racer, Klimenko declared candidly: “I’m already thinking about Mercedes’ move to the new AMG GT coupe and what I’ll do.
“Do I stay [in GT racing]? Do I go? If I stay, do I change brands?”
Trailblazer Klimenko, the first woman team owner to win a Bathurst 12 Hour (in 2013), has been a long-time Mercedes loyalist. But her relationship with Mercedes-Benz Australia has been stretched occasionally, mainly over the carmaker’s indifference to being part of V8 Supercars.
She has made it clear that, as she considers her options among the next generation of GT3 rockets, she won’t necessarily stick with the three-pointed star, if she elects to continue racing GT sports cars at all.
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