42 Cars Entered for Sepang Season Opener

A 42-car entry list for next month’s opening round of the Asian Le Mans Series at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia has been released.

Released late last week, the list features ten cars gunning for overall honors in the top LMP2 class, joined by seven LMP3 cars and a bumper field of 25 cars in GT that will do battle across two four-hour races on Dec. 7-8.

However, it marks a decrease of three cars compared with the latest provisional full-season entry list published in October, with AF Corse’s No. 52 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo dropping off the entry along with both Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos.

Another change is that Inter Europol Competition’s No. 34 car, originally one of 11 cars in LMP2, has dropped down to LMP3, which originally was set to only feature six cars.

The entry confirms almost all of the drivers that are due to take part at Sepang.

Defending LMP2 champions Algarve Pro Racing has chosen three of its drivers from the recently-concluded European Le Mans Series, Bronze-rated Greek driver Kriton Lentoudis, Olli Caldwell and Alex Quinn to drive its No. 20 Oreca.

The sister No. 24 car will be piloted by Dane Michael Jensen, moving up from LMP3, Peugeot Hypercar racer Malthe Jakobsen – who took the 2023/24 title together with George Kurtz and Colin Braun – and single-seater convert Valerio Rinicella.

DKR Engineering has enlisted the services of Laurents Horr and Job van Uitert to partner another Greek driver, Georgios-Periklis Kolovos, its the No. 3 Oreca.

The No. 83 AF Corse crew of Francois Perrodo, Alessio Rovera and Matthieu Vaxiviere is the only LMP2 trio returning from the 2023-24 season with no changes.

They are joined in the sister No. 50 car by veteran Olivier Pla and American pair Jeremy Clarke and Patrick Byrne.

Also with a two-car effort is Proton Competition, whose No. 10 car will be driven by Jonas Ried, Mathias Beche and a to-be-confirmed Bronze.

Tom Dillmann and Vlad Lomko, who previously drove for Inter Europol in LMP2, will pilot the No. 22 together with Giorgio Roda.

The TF Sport-run Pure Rxcing effort will be campaigned by Alex Malykhin, who won last year’s GT title with the Lithuanian team, Harry King and Wayne Taylor Racing IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship star Louis Deletraz.

As previously announced, RD Limited has signed Fred Poordad, Tristan Vautier and James Allen for its first LMP2 campaign, while Nicky Catsburg is spearheading Nielsen Racing’s one-car effort alongside Naveen Rao and Matt Bell.

Defending LMP3 champions Alexander Bukhantsov and James Winslow have switched to Graff for their title defence, and will share the Swiss team’s No. 7 Ligier with Danial Frost, who raced with the pair at Sepang last year.

Runner-up Nick Adcock has teamed up with Ian Aguilera and James Dayson to drive the No. 14 Ligier for British squad RLR MSport.

As revealed last week, two thirds of the last season’s title-winning GT crew are back, as Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler are joined by Antares Au in what is now the No. 10 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R (originally listed as the No. 33).

The sister No. 92 car is piloted by Ryan Hardwick, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz in a preview of the German team’s FIA World Endurance Championship lineup.

Numerous other familiar faces from global GT3 racing also feature in the GT division, including Ferrari factory drivers Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra, Mercedes-AMG aces Ralf Aron, Fabian Schiller, Lucas Auer and Maro Engel, Porsche’s Alessio Picariello and Laurin Heinrich, McLaren’s Tom Gamble and Aston Martin man Marco Sorensen.

Elsewhere, factory Corvette driver Nico Varrone returns to AF Corse to join Conrad Laursen and Charles-Henri Samani in the No. 82 AF Corse Ferrari, while Lexus IMSA regular Ben Barnicoat is part of the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes effort alongside Parker Thompson and Anthony McIntosh.

Both of the four-races that make up the 4H Sepang are due to begin at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT), one on Saturday and one on Sunday.