The provisional entry list for the 69th edition of the Total 24 Hours of Spa has been released and it reveals that there will be 66 GT3 cars doing battle across the final weekend of July to claim the trophy for the highlight event of the Blancpain GT Series.
The twice-round-the-clock epic will be led by 36 all-pro driver line-ups that are representing ten manufacturers: Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG, Nissan and Porsche.
Since the inclusion of the Total 24 Hours of Spa on the Blancpain calendar, it has been dominated by German manufacturers and Audi will lead the way with eight cars entered by the ISR, Saintéloc and Belgian Audi Club Team WRT teams, plus three other entries.
Mercedes-AMG will enter two official cars with five additional customer entries as they search for the win that has eluded them on the last three occasions.
The BMW ROWE Racing squad represent the Bavarian marque with two entries as it looks for a three-peat at Spa.
KÜS Team75 Bernhard 911 GT3 is the only Porsche in the top class but with Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen lining up for the German squad they should not be discounted as race winning challengers.
Outside of the German contingent are manufacturers from Japan, Britain and Italy with the latter seeing three Ferrari’s and five Lamborghini’s challenging for the top step and despite their lack of silverware in the past few years, they could provide a strong challenge based on the results of the previous Blancpain GT Series races.
Britain sees entries from Bentley, Jaguar and McLaren while Japan sees the mighty GT-R Nismo GT3 representing Nissan.
In the Pro-Am Cup, 23 challengers will do battle with a selection of cars as varied as the top class – Six Mercedes-AMG GT3, six Ferrari 488 GT3, four Lamborghinis, two Audis, two Porsches, a BMW, a McLaren and an Aston Martin. The Am Cup features seven cars from five manufacturers.
With the official test day underway today, the next track action will see a Bronze Test take place on Tuesday 25 July. Thursday sees the Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying and Qualifying sessions (including a two-hour night session), and on Friday the 20 fastest cars will compete in the Super Pole to determine the starting grid. All the others can also finish their preparation for the 24-hour race in the Warm Up on Friday evening.
