Cycling-Hoy aims to compete in 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours race

LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - Six-times Olympic cycling champion Chris Hoy is switching from two wheels to four with the aim of racing in the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours Sportscar race. Nissan said on Tuesday that they would put the Scot, who is already a brand ambassador for them ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, through their advanced driver development programme. As part of that, Britain's most successful Olympian will race a Nissan GT3 car in this year's British GT Championship starting later this month with a Le Mans entry the ultimate goal two years down the road. "This won't be easy - but I could not turn down the chance to give it a go. My ultimate ambition is to race at Le Mans. That is the dream, but I'm taking this one step at a time," Hoy said in a statement. "This makes perfect sense to us," said Darren Cox, Nissan's Director of Global Motorsport. "The Le Mans 24 Hours is the Olympics of motorsport so who better to take on an epic challenge such as this?" (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Justin Palmer)