Verstappen.com Racing, the team owned by reigning Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen, has revealed that it will join the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup grid this year with an Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3, while also continuing to work with the Emil Frey Racing squad in Sprint.
The Dutch outfit will compete in the Endurance races with car #33, the same number Max sports in F1. It will be operated in collaboration with 2 Seas Motorsport, which contested last year’s Endurance campaign and clinched the 2022 British GT teams’ title.
Thierry Vermeulen, Chris Lulham, and Harry King will share the new-spec Vantage, which will be entered in the Gold Cup class. Vermeulen comes with two full seasons of Sprint Cup experience, both at the wheel of an Emil Frey Racing Ferrari. The Dutchman finished fourth in last year’s standings.
British driver Lulham makes the transition from sim racing after honing his skills with Team Redline. The 21-year-old has been handpicked by Verstappen to make this leap. King, meanwhile, joins the Endurance Cup grid after enjoying major success in Porsche Cup racing and over the winter shone bright racing with Pure Rxcing in the Asian Le Mans Series LMP2 class.
Verstappen.com Racing will also increase its support for the Emil Frey Racing programme in the Sprint Cup weekends. Vermeulen continues for a third season aboard the #69 Ferrari in the Gold Cup, while Lulham joins to make his debut in the series. The opening two rounds will see both drivers race on home turf, with the opener at Brands Hatch followed by a return to Zandvoort.
“It has always been my dream to support young drivers and for a while now, I have been trying to create the possibility of a sim driver to progress to real world racing,” said Verstappen. “With Chris Lulham now being promoted from Team Redline sim racing to our GT3 Sprint and Endurance Racing, teaming up with Thierry Vermeulen, who has been competing for Verstappen.com Racing for a few years now, we take it to the next step.”
Emil Frey’s second Ferrari, for the Sprint Cup Pro class, will carry #14 and be shared by Ben Green and Konsta Lappalainen.
Images courtesy of Verstappen.com Racing and Emil Frey
