Roscrea’s Nicole Drought Teams Up With Murphy Prototypes and stars on Global GT Light Debut

Irish Touring Car Star  and Sean Edwards Foundation Ambassador Nicole Drought has announced a partnership with Irish Sportscar team Murphy Prototypes which sees her join the team’s Young Driver programme. Nicole will now visit the team workshops in the UK and also attend some of the remaining rounds of the ELMS series around Europe with the team.

Last weekend, Nicole raced a sportscar for the first time, joining the Global GT Lights for two of their championship rounds at the Anglesey Circuit in North Wales. Despite only ever having raced her ITCC Honda and never having raced on slick racing tyres, Nicole qualified her ABR run machine second overall, meaning she started race one on the outside of the front row. Unfazed by the rolling start used by the class, she tucked in behind series leader Max Drennan when the lights changed, challenging for the lead immediately with a run around the outside at turn two. On the fourth lap, Nicole got alongside Drennan on the run to the downhill Corkscrew corner and held the inside line to take the lead. A four way battle for the lead ensued with Nicole falling to fourth, then back to second. Unfortunately in the closing stages, contact with James Thompson spun both cars and dropped them out of contention.
In the final race of the weekend, Nicole initially ran ninth but as the race progressed, picked off the class regulars to start the final lap right with the leaders in fifth place. Replicating her earlier move on Drennan, she moved past former series champion Bernie Braden to snatch fourth on the final corner and just missed a podium by three tenths of a second.

Greg Murphy, Murphy Prototypes:”We are delighted to help Nicole with her career and we have been really impressed with her performances to date. She obviously has great natural speed and as a result of her relative inexperience has a lot of room for improvement, which is exciting.”

Nicole Drought: “It was a great weekend, I loved racing in the class. I would like to thank Naylor Engineering for supporting me for the weekend as well as my regular partners IT Monkey, Stapletons Bakery, Bernie’s SuperValu and Gem Oils. Also the team at ABR for their help and guidance on my first race in the class.I’m also delighted to join the Murphy Prototypes Team and and grateful to Greg Murphy for his support.”

Nicole’s next race is this weekend at Mondello Park, when she returns to her 250bhp Honda Integra in search of another 2016 ITCC win.

For more information on Nicole Drought please see Nicole.ie

More info:-

Nicole Drought, 22, is a race driver from Roscrea in County Tipperary. In 2015 she made her race debut and scored 5 podiums in the Irish Touring Car Championship.

In September 2015, she was named by Motorsport Ireland as their Driver of The Month, an accolade which includes a nomination for the Young Driver Of The Year Award.
She is a student of Accountancy in the University of Limerick.

In early 2016 she was invited to Le Castellet in the South of France by The Sean Edwards Foundation to complete a 2 day test in a Porsche GT3 Supercup. She was subsequently named by the foundation as their first Irish Ambassador.
In August 2016, she joined the Murphy Prototypes Young Driver initiative and made her sportscar debut, driving a Global GT Light.

Nicole currently competes in the Production Class of the 2016 Irish Touring Car Championship in her 250bhp Honda Integra DC2

Murphy Prototypes is a front-running endurance racing team contesting the high profile European Le Mans Series and the ultimate test of automotive durability, the 24-hours of Le Mans.
Based in Dublin, Murphy Prototypes is proud to be Ireland’s sole representative at this prestigious level of motor sport. It competes in the highly competitive LMP2 category using a Nissan-powered Oreca prototype sportscar, piloted by a team of highly-experienced and talented drivers.The team is led by Greg Murphy, the enigmatic Irishman is no stranger to competitive motor sport. Having carved out a successful single seater career in Formula 3. It is Greg’s ambition to see the team on the top spot of LMP2 as well as having higher aspirations in international endurance motor racing. Murphy Prototypes is a dynamic, innovative and forward thinking company driven by a team of professionals with a proven track record of delivering quality. At Murphy Prototypes  pride themselves on being one of the best prepared teams in the paddock.
Nicole now joins Sean Doyle and FF1600 driver Jordan Dempsey as part of the team’s Young Driver initiative.