The SRO GT World Challenge Europe season opened this past weekend with a six-hour Endurance Cup race at the Circuit Paul Ricard in France. There were 59 cars from 10 total brands on the entry list, including eight BMW M4 GT3 EVO entries spread among the four different classes. A BMW won this race in both 2024 and 2025 but fell short of victory this year, though BMW teams did have podium finishes in every class.
In qualifying, the #32 Team WRT M4 GT3 EVO of Kelvin van der Linde, Charles Weerts and Jordan Pepper was the fastest of the BMW entries by qualifying 10th fastest, with the #46 BMW of Valentino Rossi, Dan Harper and Max Hesse right behind in 11th. In GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup races, all three drivers participate in a qualifying session and the fastest time from each driver is used for an overall average time. Incredibly, the top 26 cars were within a second of each other, with the pole going to the #48 Mercedes-AMG. Mercedes-AMG and McLaren both had three cars in the top ten.
Aside from an opening lap crash and a late race caution, the six-hour race that ended in darkness was relatively trouble-free. The #32 BMW of Weerts, van der Linde and Pepper ran in the top five for most of the race but didn’t have the pace at this circuit to compete with the leading cars from Mercedes-AMG, Aston Martin and McLaren. They ultimately finished fourth overall and third in the Pro Cup class, with the win going to the #7 Aston Martin. “We worked well as a driver crew and got the maximum out of our package,” said van der Linde. “The guys at the front were just a bit too fast for us this time but we scored important points for both the Endurance Cup and the overall standings. The season is still long, and hopefully we’ll be stronger again at the next race event.”
The #98 ROWE RACING M4 GT3 EVO of Augusto Farfus, Raffaele Marciello and Jake Dennis also had a solid race, finishing sixth overall and fifth in Pro Cup. “This sixth place from starting position 22 feels like a podium,” said Farfus. “We didn’t have the package we needed here to fight for a podium finish but we fought hard and scored important championship points. Now we’ll aim to do better at the next race at Monza.” Elsewhere in the Pro Cup class, the #46 Team WRT car of Rossi, Harper and Hesse finished down in twelfth overall and ninth in class after serving a penalty for ignoring blue flags.
BMW teams were on the podium in other classes as well. In the Gold Cup class, the #998 ROWE RACING entry of Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde and new-to-BMW Tim Tramnitz finished third. In Silver Cup, the #30 Team WRT BMW of Matisse Lismont, Ignatio Montenegro and Amaury Cordeel (shown in top photo) finished second in class, and the #991 Paradine Competition BMW of Darren Leung, James Kellett and Dries Vanthoor finished third in the Bronze Cup class.
The next race weekend for GT World Challenge Europe will be at the Brands Hatch circuit in the UK on May 2nd-3rd and will be the first Sprint Cup race weekend that will feature two races. GT World Challenge Europe has longer Endurance Cup races and shorter Sprint Cup races with some teams competing in either the Endurance Cup or Sprint Cup races, while other teams compete in all of them.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy SRO, BMW]
