Endurance Field Grows to 54 Entries for Paul Ricard 1000km

The addition of two cars has increased the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup grid to 54 entries for this weekend’s six-hour race at Paul Ricard.

Herberth Motorsport has added a second Porsche 911 GT3 R for the second round of the season, while Singha Racing Team is bringing a Porsche to the grid.

The extra Herberth car will be driven by Alessio Picariello, Ivan Jacoma and Niki Leutwiler in the Pro-Am category.

Picariello won the European Le Mans Series GTE title in 2020 while Leutwiler is the reigning Michelin Le Mans Cup GT3 champion and also races in the FIA World Endurance Championship GTE-Am class with Porsche squad Team Project 1.

Herberth’s No. 24 Pro-Am Porsche adds to the German team’s full-season No. 911 entry that won the Gold Cup class last time out at Imola.

The Singha Porsche lineup consists of Australian Super2 points leader Matthew Payne alongside Thai racers Piti Bhirombhakdi and Tanart Sathienthirakul.

As reported earlier this month, Payne is set to contest round three at the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa with Porsche squad Grove Racing.

Another notable update to the Endurance Cup entry list for Paul Ricard is a car switch for the Gold Cup crew of Alex Malykhin, Ben Barker and James Dorlin.

After contesting the 3 Hours of Imola in a Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, the same trio moves into a Porsche 911 GT3 R run by Allied-Racing.

Additionally, the No. 112 JP Motorsport McLaren 720s GT3 has transferred into the Gold Cup division after starting the campaign in Silver Cup.

This is because the team has added McLaren factory driver and International GT Open points leader Joe Osborne to the crew alongside Patryk Krupinski and Maciej Blazek.

Krupinski and Blazek were joined by Christopher Bruck at Imola, however that was only a one-race deal. They ran in the Silver class despite Krupinski being a Bronze.

Touring car racer Franco Girolami has replaced Dusan Borkovic in Madpanda Motorsport’s Mercedes-AMG, alongside Sean Walkinshaw and team boss Ezequiel Companc.

There are no changes to the Pro category lineups for the Paul Ricard 1000km.

Team WRT won the opening round of the Endurance Cup season with its No. 32 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II driven by Charles Weerts, Kelvin van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor.

The same trio finished second at Paul Ricard last season, behind the GPX Racing Porsche lineup of Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Earl Bamber.

Keeping up with tradition, this weekend’s Paul Ricard 1000km will be a night race, starting at 6 p.m. CEST and ending at midnight.

Correction: Singha Racing Team is running a Porsche 911 GT3 R, not a Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 as stated in an earlier version of this story