BMW Motorsport have announced that they will be running four new drivers at the upcoming three-day rookie test at Jerez, which starts on 10 December.
Works BMW driver Nicky Catsburg will head up the test where the four drivers will get the chance to sample the BMW M4 DTM machinery.
Joining Catsburg is Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup Vice-Champion Nick Yelloly, who had a brief taste of BMW touring car action earlier this year at the eighth VLN meeting alongside Joel Eriksson in a BMW 235i Racing Cup car.
BMW Motorsport Junior Mikkel Jensen will be given the opportunity to test along with 19-year-old South African Sheldon van der Linde who has competed in a number of GT series in 2018 including the Total 24 Hours of Spa where he claimed third place with Kelvin van der Linde and Jeffrey Schmidt.
Phillipp Eng will be on hand to offer his advise and also set the benchmark for the rookies to measure themselves against.
While Catsburg will be taking part in the test is is not expected that he will be in contention for a full time drive in 2019 with commitments in place for the FIA World Endurance Championship and WTCR already.
With Augusto Farfus leaving the series at least one seat is available with BMW for the 2019 season, and although no official announcement has been made in regards to the line up for the new season Bruno Spengler and Marco Wittmann drove the new spec car in their latest test.
Audi announced their line up last week for the test with FIA World Rallycross race winner Andreas Bakkerud heading up the line up of Benoit Treluyer, Frederic Vervisch, Ferdinand Habsburg, Jonathan Aberdein and Mattia Drudi.
Mercedes will also be at the test with a yet-to-be-named line up, despite the announcement that they will be withdrawing from the series at the end of this season. Prior agreements with the organising body ITR mean that the marque will be present.