WRT Had to “Dig Deep” for Expanded 24H Spa Effort

Team WRT has had to “dig deep” to field an expanded five-car entry in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa according to team principal Vincent Vosse, as the Belgian squad adds two star-studded Pro cars to its full season GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup fleet.

WRT fields the joint-largest entry of any team competing in the 78th running of the Ardennes classic, matched only by a similarly large entry from AF Corse with five Ferrari 296 GT3s.

As part of its full season GTWC Europe Endurance Cup effort, WRT already had three BMW M4 GT3 EVOs entered for the event, but those cars have been joined by two additional, one-off entries in the Pro class.

Chief amongst those is the No. 46 car, the lineup for which consists of Valentino Rossi, Kevin Magnussen and Rene Rast.

Vosse revealed to Sportscar365 that the idea for this lineup, which will notably see Magnussen contest his first GT3 race since becoming a BMW factory driver, was first floated during the FIA World Endurance Championship round in Qatar several months ago.

“We had a very nice dinner in Qatar,” said Vosse.

“We had a very funny discussion between Rene and Vale and then Kevin got involved. It was a funny one, which came naturally I would say.

“I think the idea came from Vale at the end. Vale was discussing with Rene to motivate him to be with him in the car, because I told Vale that Rene is one of the best for this type of race.

“He knows the car so well, but Rene has already a large program and he’s not really likely to accept.

“So I said to Vale, ‘It’s your turn.’ He had to convince him and it was very funny. And then Kevin got involved. It was a funny way to make it happen.”

Meanwhile, the No. 31 car, another one-off for this weekend, consists entirely of BMW LMDh drivers as Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde team up with Marco Wittmann.

“Of course, we could not leave Dries there,” said Vosse.

“We always had the idea to run Dries, Sheldon and someone, which would have been Wittmann or Eng.

“And Vale, it came a bit on top because it was clear that he will do WEC, but we did not know exactly which races he would like to do on top and we never really discussed it with him.

“So two extra cars, which is a big challenge. It’s not an easy one.

“We are taking it very seriously because it’s not something where you just say, ‘Yeah, let’s do an extra car.’

“We had to dig deep. We had some support from other people. They are all from WRT, but we had to think a lot.

“It was not easy to find the cars. It was a lot of different things.”

Vosse stated that the two extra cars both came from WRT’s existing fleet, with one of them the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour-winning car that has since been upgraded to EVO specification.

Rast: First GT3 Enduro With BMW “Exciting” Prospect

As part of the crew for the No. 46 car, BMW Hypercar driver Rast will be lining up for his first GT3 endurance race with the brand, returning to the 24H Spa for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although Rast has raced BMW’s GT3 car extensively since joining the brand in 2023, those outings have to date remained exclusively limited to DTM.

“It’s quite exciting, I would say,” Rast said about the prospect of his first GT3 endurance race with BMW.

“Just those two characters, Rossi and Magnussen on one car, and I’m in between. It’s quite nice.

“Obviously they bring so much value to the team, to that race. Also to me, I can learn a lot from them.

“I think the atmosphere will be quite relaxed, but on the other hand also we want to compete, it’s not just for fun, right?

“So we want to achieve something, but I hope that we also have a lot of fun together, because obviously Valentino is a very fun character, always easy going, so yeah, I’m looking forward to it.”

Rast’s tenure as an Audi factory driver resulted in two previous overall victories in the 24H Spa, winning in 2012 and 2014.

Notably, the 2014 victory came with WRT, which is also the last time the Belgian stable came out on top in the event.

“It’s a cool race and just because there’s so many GT cars on track obviously it will be difficult in the race to pass as always but that’s the challenge,” said Rast.

“To get through the traffic safely with all these cars on track because GT3 racing is still difficult to pass.

“It’s not like we have push to pass or DRS to pass so you need to put a lot of effort to pass another car. I’m looking forward to it.”