The SRO GT World Challenge Europe championship gets many more entries than the SRO GT World Challenge America championship, which is run by the same sanctioning body (SRO) and features the same GT3-spec cars. There will be no less than thirteen M4 GT3 EVOs entered in the SRO GT World Challenge Europe season from five teams.
Unlike GT World Challenge America, the GT World Challenge Europe series has two championships from which teams can choose. They can run in the longer Endurance Cup rounds, which, of course, feature longer races, or run in the Sprint Cup rounds, which feature shorter races. In the GT World Challenge America series, there’s only one championship and only one race that can be considered an endurance round, the 8-hour finale at Indianapolis.
BMW has been present in GT World Challenge Europe for years and will be represented in 2025 by factory-supported Team WRT and ROWE Racing, as well as customer teams Paradine Competition, Century Motorsport, and BMW Italia Ceccato Racing. Eight factory drivers will compete among the various entries.
The Endurance Cup championship consists of five races in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Spain. The highlight of the entire season is the 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium in June, the biggest GT3-only race in the world. There are eight BMW entries in the Endurance Cup Rounds:
#32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Team WRT
• Ugo de Wilde
• Kelvin van der Linde
• Charles Weerts
#98 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, ROWE Racing
• Augusto Farfus
• Jesse Krohn
• Raffaele Marciello
#777 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, AlManar Racing by Team WRT
• Al Faisal Al Zubair
• Jens Klingmann
• Ben Tuck
#30 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Team WRT
• Gustav Bergström
• Etienne Cheli
• Gilles Stadsbader
•
#991 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paradine Competition
• Darren Leung
• Toby Sowery
• Dan Harper
#992 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paradine Competition
• James Kellett
• Pedro Ebrahim
• Charles Clark
•
#15 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, BMW Italia Ceccato Racing
• Marcelo Tomasoni
• Federico Malvestiti
• Felice Jelmini
#42 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Century Motorsport
• Jarrod Waberski
• Will Moore
• Mex Jansen
The Sprint Cup championship consists of five race weekends with two races per weekend, with rounds in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Spain. There are five BMW entries in the Sprint Cup:
#32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Team WRT
• Kelvin van der Linde
• Charles Weerts
#777 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, AlManar Racing by Team WRT
• Al Faisal Al Zubair
• Jens Klingmann
#30 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Team WRT
• Gustav Bergström
• Gilles Stadsbader
#991 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paradine Competition
• Darren Leung
• Dan Harper
#992 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paradine Competition
• Mex Jansen
• Maxime Oosten
The BMW teams won’t all be competing against each other, as there are various classes based on driver ratings in the series, including Pro, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. “I am proud of the impressive line-up of BMW M Motorsport customer teams and drivers in the GT World Challenge Europe,” said Head of Customer Racing at BMW M Motorsport Björn Lellmann. “We won several titles in different classes in 2024. We aim to build on this record and, ideally, even expand it. I can’t wait to walk through the paddock and see the large number of BMW M Motorsport cars. This applies to the BMW M4 GT3 EVO as well as to the BMW M4 GT4 EVO, which we will see in the GT4 European Series.”
The year’s first event is two days of official testing at the Paul Ricard circuit in France on March 10th-11th, followed by the first round of the Endurance Cup championship at Paul Ricard on April 11th-13th. The first Sprint Cup rounds are at Brands Hatch in the UK on May 3rd-4th. For more information on GT World Challenge Europe, visit www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
