Whether as the feature class or as a supporting category, the wide world of GT racing offers no shortage of great driving talent that made their mark in 2025.
That much was made very clear in a wide variety of series, making this another difficult choice.
Beginning in IMSA, 2024 GT Driver of the Year winner Laurin Heinrich was again excellent with AO Racing. He followed up his 2024 title-winning season in GTD PRO with another fine season that included a pair of well-earned wins at Sebring and Laguna Seca. So impressive was Heinrich over these past two seasons that he was rewarded with his first outing in a Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 – in the team’s final WEC race – and a part-time IMSA role with the team in 2026.
He’s not the only standout from IMSA’s GT3 categories, though. Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports returned to its championship-winning form despite only winning one race, thanks in part to the pace and poise of Alexander Sims – and that form also carried over as Sims helped take a very important first win in Asia for Johor Motorsports Racing’s new Z06 GT3.Rs. And that’s no slight on the ageless wonder that is Antonio García, who keeps performing at a high level for Corvette in an age where other manufacturers may have already shifted him towards part-time status.
For most of the year, the aforementioned drivers had a surprising challenger for the title – DragonSpeed’s Albert Costa. He was the team’s only full-time driver this year, but in the #81 Ferrari he was often quick, and he was clever as well at Mosport, where he won thanks to a massive fuel save strategy. This, by the way, for a team that didn’t do any “real-world” testing until late in the year.
And in their first full season of American racing, Paul Miller Racing’s Dan Harper and Max Hesse earned a pair of big wins in Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta to secure the Michelin Endurance Cup title in the #48 BMW. Harper’s success has already propelled him towards a new full-time adventure in WEC.
Mercedes-AMG’s Philip Ellis was once again stellar this year, between being the driving force behind Winward Racing’s back-to-back GTD Championships in IMSA, and another solid season at Regulator Racing in GT World Challenge America, where he made the most of the team’s alternate driver deployment strategy when possible.
Another strong driver who straddled both IMSA and GT World America well was Matthew Bell. Of course, he was a big contributor to AWA’s Rolex 24 At Daytona victory in January. With DXDT Racing in the latter series, he helped guide the team to a strong second place in the Pro-Am standings, fighting for the title until the very end of the season.
Making a cameo appearance for AWA was McLaren’s Marvin Kirchhöfer, the other star performer for the Canadian team at Daytona. He then did all he could to bring McLaren to the front in both GT World Challenge Europe and British GT, and he picked up the pole for the Spa 24 Hours to boot.
And what a year Kenton Koch had: He was the first driver to win the top championships in both GT World Challenge America (Pro) and GT4 America (Silver) with Random Vandals Racing. He started the IMSA season with Korthoff Competition Motors, then switched teams mid-season to Triarsi Competizione, never skipping a beat in his first races behind the wheel of a Ferrari 296 GT3: Grabbing Triarsi’s first win at Road America, and finishing second in the Drivers’ Championship behind Winward’s Ellis and Russell Ward.
Then it’s on to Asia, where TGR Team au TOM’S Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita have continued to break through the boundaries of what seems possible in SUPER GT’s GT500 class. Together they took back-to-back titles – four in five years for Tsuboi, tying the record, and three for Yamashita, who sealed the title in Motegi with a breathtaking second stint performance. If they never get an opportunity to run in a Toyota Hypercar in the future, it won’t be due to a lack of driving skill.
Also in GT500, this was the year where Tadasuke Makino stepped forward to lead Honda and Stanley Team Kunimitsu to an unlikely second-place run in the championship. The punctuation mark was a brilliant drive through the field in the penultimate round at Autopolis, leading an all-Honda podium.
The depth of competition in GT300 saw eight teams win across eight rounds. Two-time champion Naoya Gamou was once again strong and consistent, enough to win his second title for K2 R&D LEON Racing. João Paulo de Oliveira, even after missing two races, was the catalyst to a close challenge in Kondo Racing’s Nissan GT-R.
And after entering the season from the mid-way point, Harry King excelled with seven x seven Racing, delivering the team its first win and finishing the year with podiums in three straight races. Combine that with an exceptional GT World Challenge Endurance Gold Cup title and Spa 24 Hours class honours, and King’s reward as a new Porsche factory driver is more than justified.
Ayhancan Güven used a strong run at the Rolex 24 with Wright Motorsports to springboard into a sensational title-winning DTM campaign for Manthey, and full Works status at Porsche for 2026. His next venture will be into the FIA World Endurance Championship, also with Manthey.
Speaking of which, reigning LMGT3 Champions Richard Lietz and Riccardo Pera were brilliant throughout the season at Manthey 1st Phorm, in their respective roles.
Pera doesn’t fit the mould of a “rising star” as he’s been one of the top Silver drivers in the sport for some time – in fact, he’s been at the level of some of GT racing’s top factory drivers often enough that we wonder why no manufacturer has come to him with a contract!
What’s there to say about Lietz that hasn’t been said many times before? The Austrian legend wrote even more chapters of his great career with Porsche as the captain of the #92 Porsche squad. Now a seven-time Le Mans winner, Lietz was as proficient behind the wheel as he’s ever been before.
Ferrari had no shortage of its factory GT aces performing at a high level, whether it was Lilou Wadoux in ELMS and IMSA’s Endurance Cup races, Alessio Rovera in WEC, or Daniel Serra in IMSA GTD.
And then there was Dennis Marschall, not a Ferrari factory driver, but behind the wheel of a 296 GT3 in GT World Challenge Europe Bronze Cup, Marschall had an amazing season alongside his running mate Dustin Blattner that saw the German secure a Bronze “Triple Crown” in all three European championships.
Patric Niederhauser and Rutronik Racing will be Porsche’s loss – and Lamborghini’s gain – in 2026, off the back of an amazing season for the German which saw him finish second overall at the Spa 24 Hours, and capture the GT World Europe Endurance Cup by just one point in the season’s final race.
Lucas Auer was unfortunate not to have come away with either the DTM title or a GT World Europe title after contending for both championships for most of the season, leading the DTM standings going into the finale at Hockenheim and holding onto the GTWC Endurance Cup until the final minutes of the Barcelona finale.
DSC’s 2025 GT Driver of the Year
Kelvin van der Linde
After years of being one of the pillars of Audi’s GT3 dynasty of yesteryear, Kelvin van der Linde’s first year as a BMW M factory driver couldn’t have gone much better than it did in 2025.
He and Team WRT picked up right where they’d left off in the not-so-distant past when he won the Bathurst 12 Hour alongside his brother Sheldon and Augusto Farfus. Van der Linde would then go on to win three out of the remaining four Intercontinental GT Challenge rounds – Nürburgring (with ROWE Racing), Suzuka, and Indianapolis – to become the IGTC Drivers’ Champion.
Van der Linde nearly completed the GT World Challenge Europe “Triple Crown” too, alongside co-driver Charles Weerts: They took the Sprint Cup after winning the Valencia finale, they finished at the top of the Overall championship, and they were third in the Endurance Cup standings after winning the opener in Le Castellet.
Better results at Spa and the GTWC Nürburgring 3-Hour could have made van der Linde the first SRO “Grand Slam” champion of the modern age, but in the case of Spa, seventh place felt like the maximum.
What’s more, van der Linde slotted in nicely within WRT in WEC’s LMGT3 class, after a year spent with Akkodis ASP Team’s Lexus. The Valentino Rossi-fronted #46 BMW didn’t win a race, but not from a lack of application on the South African’s part, particularly at Imola, where he made Lietz work overtime for victory in the closing stages, and at COTA with a sensational charge through the field on a drying track.
And in his very first race of the year, van der Linde was fighting for victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, only to be pushed off by the #4 Corvette in the final chapter of a bad-blooded BMW versus Corvette feud that broke out in the race’s final stages.
The elder van der Linde brother joins 2024 winner Heinrich and 2023 winner Nicky Catsburg as the third recipient of DSC’s 2025 GT Driver of the Year Award.
Images © dailysportscar.com, GTA
