56 Cars Confirmed for 24H Spa

A total of 56 GT3 cars are set to contest the Total 24 Hours of Spa later this month, as confirmed in Friday’s publication of the provisional entry list.

The field for round three of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli and round three of GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup includes 28 cars, or half the grid, in the Pro category and entries from 11 different manufacturers.

The total number is down 16 from last year when a record 72 entries committed to the Belgian endurance major, which is being held behind closed doors on this occasion

Defending winner Porsche is the best-represented marque with a total of 11 participants including eight Porsche 911 GT3 Rs listed in Pro.

2019 winners Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen and Richard Lietz will return to defend their crown, although this time they line up for KCMG rather than GPX Racing.

The two GPX cars will be driven by the team’s Endurance Cup trios of Mathieu Jaminet, Matt Campbell and Patrick Pilet and Thomas Preining, Louis Deletraz and Romain Dumas.

KCMG has a second car for Josh Burdon, Alexandre Imperatori and Edoardo Liberati, while ROWE Racing is the third team running a pair of 911 GT3 Rs.

The recent Nürburgring 24 winner with BMW has one car for Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor, and another for Dirk Werner, Julien Andlauer and Klaus Bachler.

Elsewhere in the Porsche camp, Timo Bernhard, Dennis Olsen and Frederic Makowiecki are in Frikadelli Racing Team’s single car, and 6H Nürburgring winners Sven Mueller, Christian Engelhart and Matteo Cairoli are with Dinamic Motorsport as expected.

Tandy, Makowiecki and Pilet were runners-up for ROWE last time, but the three drivers are with different teammates for this year’s edition of the race.

Mercedes-AMG confirmed its 10-car presence earlier this week, including its two factory-supported cars in the Pro division for Haupt Racing Team and AKKA-ASP.

Audi and Lamborghini are represented by eight cars each, while Ferrari and Bentley have six and five entries respectively.

The Audi contingent features five cars in Pro, including the known entries with extended factory backing from Audi Sport for Sainteloc Racing, Team WRT and Attempto Racing.

Double 24 Hours of Spa winner WRT has a total of four cars entered, including three in the Pro ranks.

Lamborghini’s entry includes two Pro-class Huracan GT3 Evos for Emil Frey Racing and one for Orange 1 FFF Racing Team.

All three cars have their familiar Endurance Cup lineups with Emil Frey running Ricardo Feller, Norbert Siedler and Mikael Grenier in its No. 14 car and Albert Costa, Giacomo Altoe and Franck Perera in the No. 163.

FFF Racing’s Team’s lead car will be driven by last year’s GTWC Europe overall champions Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli, along with Dennis Lind.

K-PAX Racing is fielding two Bentley Continental GT3s. One will be driven by Alvaro Parente, Rodrigo Baptista and Andy Soucek, while the other features this year’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour winners Jordan Pepper, Maxime Soulet and Jules Gounon.

The other Pro Bentley is the CMR car to be driven by Seb Morris, Nelson Panciatici and Pierre-Alexandre Jean.

Indianapolis 8 Hour winner Walkenhorst Motorsport, which also won Spa back in 2018, arrives with two BMW M6 GT3s in the top category.

The team’s No. 34 car will be driven by Augusto Farfus, Nicky Catsburg and Philipp Eng, and its No. 35 will involve Martin Tomczyk, David Pittard and Nick Yelloly.

There are no changes to the three Pro Ferrari lineups, although factory driver Daniel Serra has joined AF Corse’s Pro-Am crew.

James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Nicklas Nielsen are in the No. 51 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 while Davide Rigon, Miguel Molina and Sergey Sirotkin are in the No. 72.

As previously confirmed, FIA World Endurance Championship LMP1 star Kamui Kobayashi will make his return to Ferrari machinery with HubAuto Racing.

There are also single-car Pro entries for McLaren and Honda.

Optimum Motorsport will spearhead the former’s cause with a McLaren 720S GT3 for the all-British lineup of Joe Osborne, Rob Bell and Ollie Wilkinson.

Honda, which earned a podium in the most recent IGTC round at Indianapolis, has a single NSX GT3 Evo for Dane Cameron, Mario Farnbacher and Renger van der Zande.

Aston Martin and Lexus are also represented on the grid in the other categories.

Garage 59 is running both Aston Martin Vantage GT3s, including the Endurance Cup Silver class championship-leading car of Valentin Hasse-Clot, Andrew Watson, James Pull and guest driver Roman de Angelis.

The British squad also has a Vantage in the Pro-Am ranks that will include WEC GTE-Pro ace Maxime Martin among its driving quartet.

The only Lexus RC F GT3 on the grid is Tech 1 Racing’s example which is contesting Silver Cup.

Silver Cup has a total of 12 cars entered, with 13 due to compete for Pro-Am honors and three shown in Am.