The new Mercedes-AMG GT3 will make its debut at Daytona International Speedway when IMSA conducts Balance of Performance testing on Nov. 17-18 for its WeatherTech SportsCar Championship manufacturers. As Mercedes-AMG customer sport boss Thomas Jager tells RACER, its presence will serve two purposes.

“We will have one car for both days for the BoP testing and to get some experience with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 at Daytona,” he said. “The main reason we are going is for BoP; we have customers who want to be part of the IMSA championship so we will use the test to learn everything we can, but we will also show the GT3 to team owners who could be interested in buying cars.”

More than one existing American team has been pursuing a partnership with Mercedes-AMG to field the GT3, and while it’s still a possibility for 2016, the factory team will be dispatched to run the car at Daytona

“We’ll do it on our own; our development team will run the program,” Jager confirmed.

Jager’s original plans for the Mercedes-AMG GT3 program after next month’s test involved one or two cars returning for a semi-works entry in January’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona. It appears that plan is now in jeopardy due to production delays.

“It all depends on our production capacity,” Jager said. “At the moment we’re really lucky the demand for the product has been very high. We have very many orders, and after we have the FIA in-house next week to get their approval, then we begin production.

“It’s pretty late – later than we planned to start – but we will do our best to increase our production capacity to support more orders. But from the beginning, it will not be possible to have so many cars in IMSA in January. We have some [cars] going to the 24 Hours of Dubai [in January] because they placed their order first.”

With the first batch of Mercedes-AMG GT3s secured by existing customers, any new purchases that come from WeatherTech Championship teams will be fulfilled in the order they are received. Once the FIA completes their final inspection and signs off on the GT3’s homologation, Jager will have a clearer understanding of whether the GT3 will be on the grid for Daytona, or at Sebring in March.

“I cannot give a precise answer on this because we are working almost day and night to increase production capacity,” he said. “I won’t have an answer for another 10 days, but it is possible we will have no cars on track in January.”