Dubai Postponement Curtailed Marciello’s BMW Debut

Raffaele Marciello was set for his first race start as a BMW factory driver with Team WRT in the Hankook 24H Dubai until the event postponement forced the Belgian team to withdraw its two-car entry.

WRT team principal Vincent Vosse revealed to Sportscar365 that BMW’s latest signing was part of a four-man works driver roster assembled for the Middle Eastern enduro, which was originally scheduled to take place on Jan. 11-14.

However, WRT withdrew its cars after security concerns around the Red Sea triggered significant logistical delays, which in turn led the event to be postponed by two weeks.

While no drivers for the effort had been publicly announced, Vosse said that Marciello was scheduled to team up with WRT stalwart Charles Weerts aboard one of the two BMW M4 GT3s entered for the event.

“Augusto Farfus was supposed to be on one of the cars with Dan Harper and on the other car it was Lello and Charles,” Vosse told Sportscar365.

When approached by Sportscar365, a BMW spokesperson confirmed that the four drivers were due to compete in Dubai before the withdrawal.

It would have been the first time that Marciello shared a car with longtime Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup rival Weerts.

Marciello’s last appearance at Dubai came in 2022, when he finished fourth overall aboard a Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

It remains to be seen when exactly the Swiss driver will now make his first racing appearance in BMW colors, although he is expected to form part of WRT’s Hypercar effort in the FIA World Endurance Championship which kicks off in Qatar in early March.

Weerts, meanwhile, would have been set for his Dubai debut, as would Harper. Farfus is a former winner of the event, having triumphed in a Schubert Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 in 2011.

The Brazilian is the only driver out of the four who would have had clashing commitments as a result of the schedule change, as he is also set to pilot the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 at the Rolex 24 at Daytona on Jan. 27-28.

Vosse went on to explain that the decision to pull WRT’s Dubai entry came as the result of logistical and planning concerns that were brought on by Creventic’s decision to push the event back by two weeks.

“At the end, we don’t have two cars just to do Dubai,” he said.

“Those two cars are all test program cars. Obviously, we were taking too much risk. It was too risky to do Dubai and then maybe not having the car back at the right time and having to cancel all the testing.

“The only reason is that we were struggling to take the risk to have to tell our customers that we have to cancel all the testing in Europe, which goes very quickly.”

Vosse Downplays Chances of N24 Return for WRT

Vosse also played down the chances of WRT’s return to the Nürburgring 24, which will form a part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge calendar for the first time this season.

The Belgian squad contested all five IGTC rounds last year and won two (Kyalami and Indianapolis), while it is also a former winner of the Eifel endurance classic.

Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstroem, Laurens Vanthoor and Nico Mueller drove an Audi R8 LMS GT3 to victory upon the team’s first attempt in 2015, while WRT also finished third overall in 2017.

Vosse said WRT “would love to” return to the Nordschleife for the first time since 2018, but added the team needs to be careful not to overextend itself as its WEC Hypercar program with BMW comes online.

“We have to be careful on where we concentrate,” he said.

“It’s clear that at the moment we have a huge challenge in front of us and we have to see it like that, as a huge challenge.

“Not many teams have the opportunity to do what we do and we have to do it well. I don’t want to do everything.

“I would love to do DTM, I would love to do Nürburgring 24. I would love to do some other things but at the moment the group of people we have is to do what we are planning to do and we will not do more than that.”