The race teams competing in the SRO GT World Challenge Europe series in 2025 were busy in March preparing for the season that starts soon, with many of them participating in “Prologue” test days at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France.
Unlike the SRO GT World Challenge America championship, the SRO GT World Challenge Europe championship allows teams to choose between Sprint Cup or Endurance Cup championships. SRO is the same sanctioning body that runs the SRO GT World Challenge America series, but there are a lot more BMWs competing in Europe than in the US, with a total of thirteen BMW M4 GT3 EVOs entered between the two championships.
None of the seven BMWs that tested at Paul Ricard were among the fastest of the 52 total cars that attended. On the first day, the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2 cars set the three fastest times in the first session, with the #98 ROWE Racing M4 GT3 EVO the fastest of the BMWs in twelfth. The fastest BMW lap time was a 1:56.560, which was nearly 1.4 seconds off the pace of the fastest Lamborghini. Lamborghini was also the fastest in session two, with the #98 M4 GT3 jumping up to fifth fastest during the wet session.
On the second day of testing, Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO entries set the top eight times in the first session, with the fastest time put in by the #3 car with a 1:53.657. Once again, the #98 ROWE Racing was the fastest BMW but its time of 1:54.787 was only good enough for twelfth position. The top ten cars were within a second of each other in lap times. A McLaren 720S GT3 EVO set the fastest time in the last session with a 1:53.602, but the #98 BMW was down in nineteenth fastest with a 1:54.876.
None of the BMWs among the various classes (Pro Cup, Gold Cup, Silver Cup, Bronze Cup) were at the top of their respective classes over the two days. Of course, we won’t really know how competitive the BMWs are until the first race of the season. The Endurance Cup season starts on April 11th-13th at Paul Ricard, and that series will go on to race at Monza (Italy), Spa (Belgium), the Nürburgring (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain). The Sprint Cup season starts on May 3rd-4th at Brands Hatch (Great Britain) and will also race at Zandvoort (Holland), Misano (Italy), Magny-Cours (France) and Valencia (Spain).
You can watch the SRO GT World Challenge Europe races on the GT World YouTube channel.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy SRO]
