AKKA-ASP Confirms Endurance, Sprint Lineups

AKKA-ASP has announced its driver lineups for both the Endurance and Sprint portions of this year’s GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.

The 2018 SRO GT Series championship-winning squad will field a total of three Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos across the three classes in the long-distance events as well as two cars in the Sprint competition.

Raffaele Marciello is the only member of the team’s Endurance Pro crew to stay on from last season with the Italian to be joined by new co-drivers in Felipe Fraga and Timur Boguslavskiy.

Fraga and Boguslavskiy are familiar to the AKKA-ASP setup having driven the outfit’s Silver Cup title-winning Mercedes in the 2019 Endurance series.

Their move to the Pro squad has forced a wholesale change in AKKA-ASP’s Silver Cup lineup for 2020.

Former GRT Grasser Racing driver Arno Santamato, Ferrari Challenge North America runner-up Benjamin Hites and LMP3 ace Lucas Legeret will form the new trio.

The Pro-Am lineup for Endurance Cup will feature French World Cup-winning goalkeeper Fabien Barthez alongside AKKA-ASP regulars Jim Pla and Jean-Luc Beaubelique.

Barthez, who recently ended his involvement with the Panis-Barthez Racing LMP2 team, drove for AKKA-ASP in French GT4 last year and is now set for his third Endurance campaign with the Jerome Policand-led squad.

For the Sprint series, Mercedes-AMG factory driver Marciello will be joined by Boguslavskiy in the Pro Mercedes while Hites and Pla will team up for a Silver Cup run.

AKKA ran a total of four cars in the Sprint competition last year which saw Marciello and Vincent Abril claim third in the drivers’ championship.

Sportscar365 understands that Abril is set to drive for a different Mercedes GT3 squad in GTWC Europe this year.