TRIBUTE LIVERY FOR HANSON

Young gun Jay Hanson will race with a special tribute livery next week featuring primary sponsorship from his long-time supporter Pana Group for the TCR Bathurst 400.

The Melbourne Performance Centre driver is paying tribute to Pana Group Director Nick Panagiotopoulos passed away recently by running his Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR in the colours of the company.

“One of my sponsors, who has literally been with me all the way through go karts, pretty much been with me since day one unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago,” Hanson explained.

“It’s more of a tribute to him and his family for everything they’ve done for us, so we thought we’d give them a little something back in return.

“We thought about what we could do to do something special so we elected to give his company, Pana Group, the whole car.

“There are no other sponsors on the Alfa Romeo other than AA Holdings. These two organisations are like brothers so for the companies to share the car is quite special and it means something to their family.

“The Alfa Romeo came up really cool in those colours. It’s the first time we’ve wrapped the whole thing and it turned out really good.”

The TCR Bathurst 400 marks Hanson’s first weekend running under the MPC umbrella and the swansong for his Alfa Romeo, which will be up for sale after Bathurst.

“We’re going to go there with the same mindset, the team’s learning me and the car, as I begin working with the MPC crew,” he said.

“We went well earlier in the year, so hopefully we can carry on a bit of that and we have a good weekend.”

The final round of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series will take place as part of a six day festival of motorsport for the Bathurst 1000.

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