It says a lot when Dailysportscar’s 2023 recipient of the GT Driver of the Year award, Nicky Catsburg, didn’t make the list despite having another very solid season aboard the new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. It speaks to how high the standard is to stand out in the field of GT racing in many parts of the world.
So who’s impressed the three of us the most in 2024?
Off the back of his GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Championship in 2023, Mattia Drudi joined Aston Martin Racing as a factory driver and even in a trio with AMR mainstays Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim, he stood out on the way to Comtoyou Racing’s sensational victory in the Spa 24 Hours – the first for Aston Martin since 1948.
Maro Engel was Mercedes-AMG’s leading works driver, a hard task when considering the wealth of talent the Silver Arrows have on hand, but one that the veteran driver mastered in 2024. Engel won the Overall and Sprint Cup titles in GT World Challenge Europe’s Pro category, he finished third in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship without even winning a race, and his come-from-behind victory in the FIA GT World Cup in Macau was the final exclamation mark to an excellent season.
But not far behind Engel in the Mercedes camp was Philip Ellis, the focal point of Winward Racing’s dominant run to the IMSA GTD Championship. Ellis and company swept the ’36 Hours of Florida’ with class wins at Daytona and Sebring, then added Watkins Glen to the list of endurance victories.
IMSA’s GTD Pro class was more closely contested and Ross Gunn led an incredible campaign for Heart of Racing Team stateside. With a Watkins Glen class win and five podiums, Gunn and Heart of Racing only missed out on a championship by a razor-thin margin.
On the other side of the Pacific, consider our nomination of TGR Team TOM’S ace Sho Tsuboi partially to atone for leaving Ritomo Miyata out of last year’s list, but also as wholesale recognition of another great season with three wins in the SUPER GT Series GT500 class, and a single-seater title in Super Formula on top of that!
He wasn’t the only standout performer in Japan either. Yuya Motojima has been one of GT300’s best-kept secrets for several years, but he may be finally getting the recognition he deserves after being the driving force behind JLOC’s long-awaited first GT300 title after 31 years in Super GT.
And then there’s Joel Sturm of Manthey Pure Rxcing, the inaugural LMGT3 Endurance Trophy Champions in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Perhaps more people knew the quality that Klaus Bachler and Alex Malykhin brought in their respective roles, but as the designated Silver of the crew, Sturm was a real difference-maker on the way to an Asian Le Mans Series title in the winter, and a dominant LMGT3 title campaign punctuated by wins in Qatar and Saõ Paulo.
Dailysportscar’s 2024 GT Driver Of The Year
Laurin Heinrich
But for 2024, our choice is AO Racing’s lead driver and self-confessed Rexy superfan Heinrich. Aboard ‘Rexy the Porsche GT3 Rawr’, Heinrich won the sprints at Laguna Seca and Detroit to firmly embed AO Racing as a serious contender in IMSA’s ultra-competitive GTD Pro class.
Heinrich also helped Rexy overcome a post-qualifying penalty and severe weather to take a signature win in the endurance race at Indianapolis, and his record run to the pole for Petit Le Mans was legitimately the difference-maker when the team suffered its first major mechanical drama of the year, where Heinrich and AO Racing sealed the title by just four points.
And if that wasn’t enough, Heinrich contributed to success on his “off days”. In GT World Challenge America, he helped Wright Motorsports’ Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer secure the Pro title in a nail-biter of a title race.
In GT World Challenge Asia, Heinrich won at Sepang for Origine Motorsport, added two more podiums at Suzuka, contributing to a Teams’ Championship for the fastest-rising power in GT racing from the China region.
Still only 23, Heinrich has many more years ahead of him to build an incredible racing legacy, and that will begin next month at Daytona as he, Rexy, and AO Racing begin the push to defend their titles.
