Team WRT overcame a very challenging weekend of Sept. 20-21, 2025, to win the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup championship, with works drivers Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde winning the Pro Cup class in the #32 M4 GT3 EVO and WRT winning the team championship.
Winning the title sure wasn’t easy. Weerts and van der Linde have had a strong year and came into the final two races at Valencia in Spain leading the Pro Cup championship, but it was a slim margin to the second-place car and there were five teams capable of winning it on the final weekend. The weekend couldn’t have started much worse for WRT. Qualifying for race one didn’t go well, with the #32 car ending up in 23rd overall and it got worse from there. Weerts was at the wheel of the #32 when he was hit by another car and taking out of the race, which put a lot more stress on the team to get a strong result in race two on Sunday.
Giles Stadsbader and Matisse Lismont won the Silver class in race one.
There was success in other classes for BMW in race one, with Gilles Stadsbader and Matisse Lismont winning the Silver Cup class in the #30 WRT M4 GT3 EVO, and the #992 Paradine Competition M4 GT3 EVO of Maxime Oosten and Mex Jansen finishing third in the same class. The #777 AlManar Racing by WRT BMW of Jens Klingmann and Al Faisal Al Zubair finished fourth in the Gold Cup class.
Jens Klingmann and Al Faisal Al Zubair finished fourth in the Gold Cup championship
In race two, the #32 BMW of van der Linde and Weerts started in a much better position, with van der Linde qualifying the car fourth in the Pro Cup class. He then put in a stellar drive to move into first place in class and overall during his stint. The WRT team then put in a quick pit stop to beat the second place Lamborghini out of the pits to maintain the lead with Weerts at the wheel. Weerts then held off the second-place Lamborghini despite being sore from his wreck the day before to hold first place and win the championship.
Racing was super tight between the #32 BMW and the #63 Lamborghini in race two.
The championship is the first in the series for van der Linde but the fourth for Weerts, who won in 2020, 2021 and 2022 with Dries Vanthoor. Those previous championships were all won with WRT when they were racing with Audi in the series. “This weekend was an incredible rollercoaster,” said WRT Team Principal Vincent Vosse. “From the frustration after qualifying and Saturday’s race to the comeback and triumph on Sunday – it just feels fantastic. It was an outstanding team effort. Once again, the team in the pit lane showed how good they are, securing the fastest pit stop overall, and on top of that winning the Pit Stop Challenge championship (which goes to the team with the fastest pit stops during the season) is just brilliant. This is our first title with BMW, and we are very proud of it.”
Maxime Oosten and Mex Jansen finished third in Silver Cup in race one.
In other classes, Jens Klingmann and Al Faisal Al Zubair finished fourth in the Gold Cup championship, and Mex Jansen and Maxime Oosten finished fourth in the Silver Cup standings. There’s one more GT World Challenge Europe race still to go, with the Endurance Cup finale coming up at Barcelona on the weekend of October 10th-12th.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW, SRO]
