We’re only a couple of days away from the start of the Total 24 Hours of Spa week in Belgium. Initially SRO Motorsports Group and RACB expected a grid of 73 cars, but we are at 66 cars at the moment – still a stellar grid for the blue riband event of the Blancpain Endurance Series.
Dailysportscar will be at Spa-Francorchamps with a team of editors and photographers to cover the event live and bring you all the latest as it happens. To kick off our coverage we’ll have a look at the entries per brand in the 65th Total 24 Hours of Spa.
Aston Martin
Aston Martin will represented by three teams and four Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3s at Spa-Francorchamps. One Vantage will be entered in the Pro Cup, the others are in the Pro-Am category. Belgium’s GPR AMR has teamed up with Aston Martin Racing to enter a pair of Vantages. Their lead entry will be the AMR Pro Cup entry, the #100 car to be driven by quick Belgian driver Bertrand Baguette and Aston Martin works drivers Darren Turner and Jamie Campbell-Walter.
Beechdean AMR’s regular drivers Andrew Howard, Daniel McKenzie and Jonny Adam will be joined by experienced Aston Martin works driver Stefan Mücke at Spa in an attempt to secure a decent result in the Pro-Am class.
GPR AMR will also enter a Vantage in Pro-Am for Belgian drivers Sarah Bovy, Pierre Grivegnee, Michael Schmetz and Bert Redant. This car will be the Art Car at Spa in a livery that nobody can ignore. The fourth and final Aston will be entered by Emil Frey Racing and will see Lorenz Frey, Gabriele Gardel and Fredy Barth returning to the Blancpain Endurance Series for the first time since the season opener at Monza.
AUDI
Audi was initially said to have four teams at Spa, but in the end there will be three teams with seven Audi R8 LMS ultra as Sainteloc Racing will not compete in the Total 24 Hours of Spa. Having won the 24 Hours in 2011 and 2012 Audi aims for third victory at Spa and has once again put some of its works drivers in the GT3 cars.
Leading the Audi assault in Belgium will be Belgian Audi Club Team WRT. Vincent Vosse’s team, currently third in the team standings, will have four cars in its home race, all in the Pro Cup. Nothing changes in the #1 Audi as Stéphane Ortelli, René Rast and Laurens Vanthoor will be racing together at Spa. Rahel Frey, Matt Halliday and Niki Mayr-Melnhof will also race together, but instead of racing in the #2 Audi they will be in the #0 car at Spa. The #2 will instead be driven by Christopher Mies, Frank Stippler and Le Mans 24 Hours winner André Lotterer. Lotterer’s Le Mans teammate, Marcel Fässler, will be racing in the #13 Audi with Swedish drivers Mattias Ekström and Edward Sandström.
Phoenix Racing will have unchanged line-ups for Spa-Francorchamps. Christopher Haase, Oliver Jarvis and Harold Primat will be in the #6, while Belgian drivers Enzo Ide and Anthony Kumpen will team up with Markus Winkelhock again in the #16 Audi R8 LMS ultra.
The seventh car will be entered by United Autosports. Zak Brown’s team will return to the Total 24 Hours of Spa with a Pro-Am Cup entry for Will Bratt, Glynn Geddie, Alain Li and Mark Patterson.
BMW
Back in June SRO announced they had received entries from six different BMW teams. The four regular Blancpain Endurance Series teams (Marc VDS Racing Team, Vita4one Racing Team, TDS Racing and ROAL Motorsport) would be joined by two other teams (Schubert Motorsport and DB Motorsport). In the end Schubert Motorsport and DB Motorsport will not attend, although two Schubert-regulars will join Marc VDS Racing Team.
The Belgian team has entered three cars in an attempt to win the Total 24 Hours of Spa this year. 2012 Spa 24 winner Andrea Piccini, Dirk Müller and Jens Klingmann will race the third car, which will join the regular entries (Bas Leinders/Yelmer Buurman/Maxime Martin and Henri Moser/Markus Palttala/Nick Catsburg). With these three line-ups the team is ‘looking to take glory in their home event’. Dirk Müller replaces Jörg Müller who was initially announced but who hasn’t fully recovered from his crash in the ADAC GT Masters race at Spa earlier this year.
At TDS Racing Henry Hassid and Ludovic Badey will be joined by European Le Mans Series champions Mathias Beche and Pierre Thiriet, fresh from their ELMS win at the Red Bull Ring over the weekend.
Vita4One Racing Team is expected to bring its regular driver line-ups to Spa-Francorchamps. Luca Rangoni is expected to drive the ROAL Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 alongside Michela Cerruti and Stefano Comandini.
FERRARI
No fewer than 16 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3s are expected to race at Spa-Francorchamps, despite Vita4One Team Italy and MTECH pulling their entries. AF Corse and SMP Racing will enter four cars each, Sport Garage is set to race three cars, Kessel Racing two and Insight Racing with Flex Box, Team Ukraine and SOFREV ASP are all planning to run one car.
Kessel Racing’s Cesar Ramos, Davide Rigon and Daniele Zampieri are currently leading the Blancpain Endurance Series Pro Cup Drivers standings and the trio is obviously hoping to leave Spa still leading the series. The second Kessel Racing Ferrari is set to race in the Gentlemen Trophy this time with Venezuelan drivers Pablo Paladino, Paolo Andreasi and Gaetano Ardagna Perez joined by Italian Giuseppe Cirò.
The current entry list shows all SMP Racing Ferrari’s in Pro-Am instead of two in Pro and two in Pro-Am. In the #70 we will see Alexey Basov and Alexander Skryabin together with Alessandro Pier Guidi and Matteo Bobbi. Russian drivers Kirill Ladygin and Victor Shaitar are listed to race the #71 entry with Luca Persiani and Mika Salo. Sergey Zlobin and Boris Rotenberg will also be joined by two Italians in the #72, namely Maurizio Mediani and Fabio Babini. The fourth and final car, the #73, will be an all-Russian affair as Devi Markozov, Daniil Move, Alexander Frolov and Mikhail Aleshin will team up at Spa.
AF Corse has added one additional car to its regular fleet of Blancpain Endurance Series cars. The Italian squad will enter another Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 for Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin, Alex Mortimer and Toni Vilander. A strong line-up in Pro-Am that is definitely a candidate for victory. AF Corse’s Blancpain regulars and reigning Pro-Am champions Niek Hommerson, Louis Machiels and Andrea Bertolini will be joined by Marco Cioci, while Yannick Mallegol, Jean-Marc Bachelier and Howard Blank will be joined by François Perrodo, who races for ProSpeed Competition in the ELMS. The squad will also enter its Gentlemen Trophy car for Filipe Barreiros, Francisco Guedes and Peter Mann.
Sport Garage is currently listed with three cars. At least one of them is set to race in DHL livery and will see Belgian journalist and racing driver Stéphane Lemeret. He will join regular drivers Leonardo Gorinni, Thierry Prignaud and Romain Brandela. Wilfried Merafina, Pierre Perret, Emmanuel Orgeval, Michaël Petit, Philippe Marie and Gilles Duqueine are expected to race the other two Sport Garage cars.
Insight Racing with Flex Box will see Ian Dockerill joining Danish drivers Martin Jensen and Dennis Andersen, while Matteo Malucelli will join Ruslan Tsyplakov, Andrii Kruglik and Raffaele Giammaria in the #123 Team Ukraine entry.
SOFREV ASP has scaled down from three cars at Paul Ricard to just one for Spa-Francorchamps. With Fred Bouvy set to join Jean-Luc Blanchemain, Jean-Luc Beaubelique and Patrice Goueslard the team’s Ferrari is likely to have some Red Bull sponsoring on it this weekend.
LAMBORGHINI
The first provisional entry list back in June showed three teams. Blancpain Racing, Blancpain Reiter and GRT Grasser Racing Team were all set to race at Spa this weekend, but a more recent entry list only shows the Blancpain Racing Lamborghini with Marc A. Hayek and Peter Kox to be joined by two other Dutch drivers, Jos Menten and Henk Haane. The second car was shown with Stefan Rosina and Albert von Thurn und Taxis before, but has since disappeared from the list. This car was also withdrawn from the Paul Ricard race after the tragic death of Andrea Mamé in the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo support race. GRT Grasser Racing Team was still on the list after the test day, but has since pulled its entry.
MCLAREN
Ten McLaren MP4-12C GT3s will race at Spa-Francorchamps. Hexis Racing will run two cars instead of the regular single entry for Stef Dusseldorp, Alvaro Parente and Alexander Sims. The second Hexis-McLaren will race in Pro-Am and will be driven by Olivier Panis, Laurent Cazenave, Come Ledogar and Eric Debard.
At Von Ryan Racing Jordan Grogor and Leon Price will not be racing, instead their seats are taken by McLaren chief development driver, Chris Goodwin and Aston Martin Racing works driver Bruno Senna.
ART Grand Prix, Gulf Racing and Boutsen Ginion will bring two cars each to Spa. Antoine Leclerc, Mike Parisy and Andy Soucek will be competing for ART Grand Prix in the Pro Cup, while in the Pro-Am class Yann Goudy, Gilles Vannelet and Gregoire Demoustier will be joined by Ulrich Amado.
Gulf Racing’s Pro Cup entry will not see any changes as Nico Verdonck, Adam Carroll and Rob Bell will be together in the #69. In the team’s second car, the #9 Pro-Am entry, Mike Wainwright and Andy Meyrick will be joined by Stuart Hall and Tim Mullen. Boutsen Ginion are currently listed with their regular drivers: David Dermont, Koen Wauters and Frederic Vervisch in the #5 and Christophe de Fierlant, Marlene Broggi and Karim Ojjeh in the #15
Last but not least MRS GT Racing. Karsten Molitor’s team ran 2 cars in Paul Ricard but is set to race one McLaren again at Spa. Carlos Kray and Justino Azcarate are currently confirmed, with TBAs for the remaining seats.
MERCEDES
There are five Mercedes SLS AMG GT3s entered for the Total 24 Hours of Spa and the latest change in the line-ups was made today at Black Falcon. Duncan Tappy and Oliver Morley will not race for the team, instead Andrii Lebed will be joined by Sergey Afanasiev, Andreas Simonsen and Francesco Castellacci. They will be racing the #19 Black Falcon Mercedes. Their teammates in the #18 car are Klaas Hummel, Steve Jans, Adam Christodoulou and Thomas Jäger.
Fortec Motorsport and HTP Motorsport will also have strong line-ups at Spa this weekend. Fortec Motorsport will enter a single SLS AMG GT3 for Briton Oli Webb, Austrian ace Karl Wendlinger and FIA World Endurance Championship driver Alex Brundle. They will face stiff competition from HTP Motorsport’s Maximilian Buhk, Maximilian Götz and Bernd Schneider in the #84 SLS AMG GT3.
The final Mercedes SLS AMG GT3, the Preci Spark car, will be Jones, Jones, Jones and Jones at Spa. We can only hope the live timing will provide us with enough information to see which Jones is in the car at any moment.
NISSAN
All four Nissans entered in the Blancpain Endurance Series will race at Spa. At Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Jann Mardenborough will join Lucas Ordonez, Peter Pyzera and Wolfgang Reip in the #32 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. Mardenborough will have a busy weekend at Spa-Francorchamps as he’s also competing in the three British Formula 3 International Series races this weekend. In the #35 Chris Buncombe will join his brother Alex Buncombe, Mark Shulzhitskiy and Steve Doherty. Nissan GT Academy Team RJN and Alex Buncombe are the current Blancpain Endurance Series Pro-Am Cup points leaders and they hope to return to the UK from Spa with an increased lead in the series.
JRM Racing will represent Nissan in the Pro Cup. Lucas Luhr, Steven Kane and Peter Dumbreck will be racing the #23 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. In Pro-Am their teammates Humaid Al Masaood, Charles Bateman and Matt Bell will be joined by Jody Fannin, who already impressed racing the JMB Racing Nissan in the previous round at Paul Ricard last month.
PORSCHE
Last but not least Porsche. The German brand will be represented in all three classes by 11 Porsches. And it is obvious that Porsche has increased its interest in the Total 24 Hours of Spa as several teams will have Porsche works drivers racing their cars. Unfortunately the Haribo Racing Team Porsche has been withdrawn, leaving Emmanuel Collard and Romain Dumas without a seat for the race.
We will however see several other top Porsche names. Manthey Racing has joined the party and will race one Porsche 997 GT3 R for Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet. Marco Holzer, Nick Tandy and Pirelli test driver Marco Mapelli will be racing the #911 ProSpeed Competition Porsche, while Timo Bernhard, Jörg Bergmeister and Nicolas Lapierre will join Pro GT by Almeras in one of their Porsches.
ProSpeed Competition will also enter one car for its regular trio of drivers: Xavier Maassen, Marc Hennerici and Maxime Soulet. The third car is a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in the Gentlemen Trophy. That car will be raced by Didier Grandjean, Carl Rosenblad, Martin Rich and Mathijs Harkema. The second Pro GT by Almeras Porsche will be driven by Eric Dermont, Franck Perera, Philippe Giaugue and Morgan Moulin Traffort.
SMG Challenge altered its line-up yesterday and announced it would drop from Pro to Pro-Am to allow Robert Renauer to join Eric Clément, Olivier Pla and Nicolas Armindo. Another Pro-Am entry will come from Switzerland with Fach Auto Tech entering a single 997 GT3 R for Martin Ragginger, Sebastien Asch, Otto Klochs and Jens Richter.
The final three Porsches will be racing in the Gentlemen Trophy. Delahaye Racing’s Christian Kelders and Daniel Desbrueres will be joined by experienced drivers Pierre Hirschi and Marc Rostan, while at ARC Bratislava Ahmad Al Harthy and Miro Konopka will share driving duties with Jan Raska (Slovakia) and Marco Schelp (Germany). SpeedLover will enter a Cup Porsche for Jean-Michel Gerome, Wim Meulders, Philippe Richard and Rik Renmans.
MtC
