Bentley have announced their intention to bring the GT3-specifcation Continental racer to the 2015 Nurburgring 24 Hours.
Only six months into its first season of racing the M-Sport developed car has proved both fast and reliable, taking a first win at the Silverstone round of the Blancpain Endurance Series last month with works drivers Andy Meyrick, Guy Smith and Steven Kane sharing driving duties.
Even now planning their 2015 commitments the team intend to add the endurance race around the Nordschleife to a season that, again, centre around the Blancpain Endurance Series that includes the Total 24 Hours of Spa, another of Europe’s top endurance races.
The grid for this weekend’s ADAC Zurich Nurburgring 24 Hours is topped by more than 30 GT3 cars including factory backed efforts from Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Nissan and Aston Martin so the addition of the Bentley squad on the grid will only cement the race’s position as an unofficial GT3 World Cup.
“We’ve been looking to compete at the Nürburgring ever since we announced our return to racing in 2012, but we knew that we had to develop and prove the capabilities of our Continental GT3 first,” said Rolf Frech, Bentley’s Member of the Board for Engineering. “The 24-hour race at the Nürburgring is one of the toughest, at the pinnacle of sports car racing, but with our season of learning in 2014 and with the Continental GT3 already being a race-winner, we feel confident in targeting the event for 2015. Personally, I can’t wait to take on the best of the competition at the most gruelling racetrack in the world.”
Further details of Bentley’s 2015 racing plans will be announced in due course as the company looks to extend both its works and customer teams’ commitments.
