24 Cars to Contest Beijing Season Finale

A total of 24 cars feature on the entry list for this weekend’s final round of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS season on the streets of Beijing.

It marks the smallest field of the six-round campaign, down from the 31 cars from the previous round of the season at Okayama, although there are several driver changes to note for the championship’s first-ever street race in the Chinese capital.

One of these concerns sometime DTM and Formula E driver Joel Eriksson, who returns to the Phantom Global Racing stable for the first time this year after contesting the majority of the 2024 campaign with the team in a Porsche 911 GT3 R.

This time around the Swedish driver will drive the No. 46 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II entered under the Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom banner alongside a returning Bao Jinlong, effectively replacing Markus Winkelhock.

Bao is making his first outing since the third round at Buriram in Thailand.

Phantom Global’s No. 13 Porsche 911 GT3 R also sees a change of driver for the Beijing weekend as Li Chao joins the team to partner Adderly Fong.

Ferrari factory driver Yifei Ye is making his second consecutive outing for Harmony Racing, but has a new teammate in the No. 55 Ferrari 296 GT3, Zhang Yaqi.

Darryl O’Young returns to the cockpit of the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo for a second time this year to join Liang Jiatong.

EBM’s No. 8 Mercedes-AMG will be driven by GTWC Australia regular Liam Talbot, who stands in for Martin Berry alongside Setiawan Santoso.

Several Japanese teams, including Team Studie, Porsche Centre Okazaki and LM Corsa, are not making the trip to Beijing, although Team 5ZIGEN, which is in contention for the Silver-Am Cup title, is a notable exception.

With 50 points up for grabs across the two Beijing races, no fewer than seven different crews are still in mathematical contention for the overall crown.

Origine Motorsport Porsche duo Leo Ye Hongli and Yuan Bo are 14 points clear of stablemate Lu Wei (again joined this weekend in the No. 4 car by Bastian Buus), with JMR Corvette driver Prince Jefri Ibrahim just a single point further back in third.

Phantom Global Porsche drivers Anthony Liu and Dorian Boccolacci are 20 points adrift in fourth, while the remaining theoretial contenders are Franky Cheng and Yu Kuai in the Phantom-run FAW Audi Sport Asia entry, Team KRC BMW pairing Maxime Oosten and Ruan Cunfan, and Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG driver Cao Qi.

Track action in Beijing begins on Friday with two paid practice sessions and an official practice session, ahead of pre-qualifying and qualifying proper on Saturday.

The opening race is due to begin at 4:15 p.m. local time on Saturday (4:15 a.m. EDT), with the finale following on Sunday at 3:05 p.m. (3:05 a.m. EDT).