SunEnergy1 Racing owner/driver Kenny Habul has brought a program to IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship that has become “Team Fun,” and according to the Australian, his team will be back in 2018, and possibly with a new chassis.

“We’re going to be back and look, I like it here; it’s fun,” he told RACER. “I’ve raced NASCAR for six years, and that was a little bit difficult for me, just because they don’t have many road courses on the calendar, so you got to wait all year for the three races and now that I’m here, so many of these tracks are new to me.

“This is a little closer to what I’m used to from my F3 days: downforce, grip, and I’m enjoying it. We’re considering Prototype. It’s as close to an F3 as I’m going to get, and we may look at it, but I can’t say when yet.”

Partnered with France’s Tristan Vautier in the No. 75 Mercedes-AMG GT3, Habul has grown quickly in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. With an admittedly large learning curve to cover, the solar energy company CEO says his growth in IMSA is directly tied to the time he can commit to driving.

“I’m learning a lot from Tristan – my times are OK for my age, and I’m getting a little better as the season goes,” he added. “My struggle is a big business, having a lot of employees, and not having a lot of time. But next year, I’m going to put some more time into racing and focus a little more. I got to find a better balance next year.”

As a newcomer to the series, Habul has found IMSA’s paddock to be rather refreshing.

“I see IMSA growing – I think there’s a lot of people in the U.S. that enjoy road course racing and I see IMSA getting stronger,” he said. “To be honest, when you come into a new series, there’s a lot of things that you have to think about carefully, you know? What’s it going to cost? Are you going to get the support you need?

“Our solar company is the top five in the United States, and we need to represent it properly; we don’t want to come here and run last, so we have to be conscious of that. And here, if you do your job the right way, you can run at the front and be competitive. We’re new to everything, but that hasn’t held us back.”

Although Habul is keen on racing a prototype, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the No. 75 Mercedes-AMG GT3 return next season. Customer support from the German brand has, in his estimation, made SunEnergy1’s IMSA debut an incredibly smooth affair. Expanding the team’s efforts into international GT3 competition is also in the works.

“A huge thank you to Mercedes-AMG, because to be honest, they make it easy for us,” he said. “And if I didn’t get that, maybe we wouldn’t have done it. We don’t have the experience and the know-how, and there’s a lot of things that go into successful teams that have been around a long time, so thank you to them for getting us up to speed like they have.

“I didn’t know who I would go with when I started. I raced with the Audi the first time and I wanted to buy an Audi. To be honest, Audi didn’t call me back. We got introduced to Mercedes, spent time with them in Germany, and it’s become a great relationship with good friends in there. We’ll do some racing in Europe with them, looking at Dubai, and we’ll do the Bathurst 12 Hours in this car for sure. This has been a great new adventure for me.”