29 cars on Sprint Cup Brands Hatch entry
The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe travels to Kent this weekend for the first hour-long Sprint Cup races of the year at Brands Hatch.
The field is set to be 29 cars strong, with a healthy 15-car Pro category featuring high-quality entries from teams running with Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Mercedes. Among them, Team WRT will aim to get its first Sprint Cup campaign with BMW off to a strong start. Its #32 line-up of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts remains unchanged, setting the Belgian duo up to contend for a fourth straight title.
In addition, a further 14 will be spread across the Gold Cup and Silver Cup classes.
Julian joins Rick Ware Racing
DragonSpeed owner Elton Julian has joined Rick Ware Racing and will become the competition director for its IMSA LMP2 programme.
RWR has added SportsCar veteran Elton Julian as the team’s @IMSA Competition Director for its LMP2 program, effectively immediately. Julian brings vast experience as a driver and owner of @DragonSpeedLLC. This also enhances the existing driver line-up of @jpmontoya @PiFitti… pic.twitter.com/H6ARalvTW1
— Rick Ware Racing (@RickWareRacing) May 5, 2023
The move follows on from the announcement that Juan Pablo Montoya, who drives for Julian’s DragonSpeed LMP2 outfit in the 2023 ELMS, will drive for RWR in selected IMSA races in 2023.
Leipert Motorsport livery and line-up revealed
Leipert Motorsport has announced the driver line-up for its assault on this year’s 24 Hours of Spa, as well as an eye-catching livery featuring branding from the event sposor CrowdStrike.
The experienced team from Wegberg in Germany will contest the twice-around-the-clock classic a new Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2. Brendon Leitch anchors the Pro-Am class contender and will be joined by a trio of event newcomers, Gerhard Watzinger, Jean-Francois Brunot and Kerong Li. All three have previously represented the Leipert outfit in Lamborghini Super Trofeo
Confirming the line-up, the team’s managing directors Marcel Leipert and Marc Poos said: “We are proud to be competing in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa again this year. In 2022 we raced the full season in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Endurance and the platform is excellent, we feel very comfortable here.
“We will use the upcoming 12h race at Spa with the 24h Series and the two official test days on 23 & 24 May to prepare the Lamborghini GT3 and the drivers in the best possible way for the biggest GT race in the world in the Ardennes.”
NM Racing set for Iberian Supercars campaign
Spanish outfit NM Racing Team will participate in this year’s Iberian Supercars Endurance with two Mercedes-AMG GT4s.
The Barcelona-based team joins the grid following campaigns in the GT4 European Series in recent years. In 2022 they won the vice title of the Pro-Am class.
It will enter two Mercedes-AMG GT4s. Gilles Vannelet from France and Guillermo Aso from Spain will compete in the GT4 Pro division, while Spanish pair Alberto de Martín and Nil Monserrat will share a car in the GT4 Bronze division.
Extended ELMS highlights
A 52-minute extended highlights package of the opening round of the ELMS season at Barcelona has been released. You can watch it on the ELMS YouTube channel with the link below:
Images courtesy of SRO, NM Racing and Leipert Motorsport
