United Autosports: Team partners with Take Heart Mercy Mission Charity for European Le MansSeries campaign to raise awareness for open heart surgery in children.

United Autosports is proud to announce that it has partnered with charity 'Take Heart Mercy Mission' for the 2026 European Le Mans Series, and for other brand activations through the remainder of the year. The charity’s mission is to provide life-saving heart surgeries and medical expertise to children in Sri Lanka, working alongside local healthcare teams through providing training and the provision of essential equipment. Take Heart Mercy Mission aim to create sustainable, long-term change by improving healthcare access and outcomes for children with congenital heart conditions.

Take Heart Mercy Mission was formed as a Charity in 2004 as a result of the sad loss in 2003 of Elliott Scally, son of Take Heart Chairman Paul Scally, who died after complications post open-heart surgery. Throughout this time, Paul had met distinguished heart surgeon Mr. Conal Austin, and Pediatric Cardiologist Professor John Simpson, and the three men decided to launch the Charity together and became Trustees of the foundation.

Take Heart Mercy Mission had a vision where the country of Sri Lanka played a critical part, because of the previous experience of both medics in the preceding years, operating on some of Sri Lankas most critically sick children at the instigation of the late Jai Lameer, an ex-pat Businessman who recognized the need for such work. Since then, Take Heart has gone from strength to strength and operated on almost 300 children in the country, as well as seeing, scanning and evaluating thousands more.

The Take Heart medical team consists of volunteer medics, drawn mainly from The Evelina London Children’s hospital, who travel to Sri Lanka every year since the charity’s inception in 2004.

Through donations and the generosity of sponsors and supporters, the team has managed to use funds raised to provide fundamental machinery, including heart scanners, by-pass equipment, anaesthetic machines, and specialist operating theatre beds to help surgeons at the National Hospital in Karapitiya Galle, South Sri Lanka, to perform the life-threatening surgery.

Take Heart medics work alongside dedicated teams of local Sri Lankan medical staff, assisting in their development and teaching them best practice, which over time has, and will continue to raise awareness of new methods in treating children with complicated heart conditions. Great strides have been taken by local specialists over the past 20 years, but there remains a huge demand and inadequate capacity to deliver timely care for many Sri Lankan infants and children.

Take Heart Mercy Mission is a small charity, it functions solely on the kindness and donations from benefactors, without which the lifesaving trips could not happen.

After McLaren LMGT3 driver Michael Birch and his wife, Wendy, met heart surgeon Conal Austin at the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix, a meaningful partnership formed between United Autosports and Take Heart Mercy Mission. As a result, the charity’s branding will feature on Michael’s #23 race car, race suit, and helmet, alongside drivers Wayne Boyd and Garnet Patterson, raising vital awareness throughout the upcoming European Le Mans Series and beyond.

Take Heart Chairman Paul Scally says.

“Since Michael and Wendy heard about Take Heart, our journey has taken us all in a new direction, with real energy coming from the dedicated, hardworking and professional staff at United Autosports, to whom we are extremely grateful. We have travelled to meetings with key staff at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, where we first saw the cars in a test session, then more recently at The Paul Ricard Circuit in France where the new Take Heart branding on the #23 McLaren was revealed.

This is a truly exciting moment for all connected to Take Heart, one that was initiated by a meeting in Monaco. I am additionally proud because my daughter Angel created the new Take Heart logo design in her marketing role, so to see it going round a race circuit on stunning looking cars at ridiculous speeds is very special.

We all look forward to a close working relationship with United Autosports and again thank them for their huge support and commitment, and of course that of Michael and Wendy Birch, without whom this partnership would never have happened.”

"We are incredibly proud to partner with Take Heart Mercy Mission.” Says Max Gregory, United Autosports Managing Director. “Seeing the dedication that Paul, Michael and the rest of the team have put towards championing the foundations vision, is a powerful reminder that motorsport can be a massive platform for good. We look forward to raising vital awareness for their life-saving work as we take to the grid for the European Le Mans Series."

To join us in supporting their life-saving work, please visit Take Heart Mercy Mission or follow the United Autosports social media platforms to make a donation today. Every contribution makes a world of difference.