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GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 24 Hours of Spa

Porsche's Spa 24h winners switch teams for 2020

Porsche drivers Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen and Richard Lietz will defend their Spa 24 Hours crown with the KCMG squad later this month.

Gary Watkins

Edited: Oct 9, 2020, 12:34 PM

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#18 KCMG Porsche 911 GT3 R: Earl Bamber, Timo Bernhard, Dennis Olsen, Jörg Bergmeister

The trio of FIA World Endurance Championship regulars have moved over to one of the Porsche 911 GT3 Rs fielded by the Hong Kong entrant for the rescheduled centrepiece round of the GT World Challenge on October 24-25 after winning with GPX Racing in 2019.

"It's good to be back to defend our crown at Spa with the three of us," said Estre. "We said at the beginning of the year that we'd like to go back and try to win it again, and Porsche always likes to keep its driver line-ups together."

Estre, Christensen and Lietz tested for KCMG at last week's official pre-event test, sharing the solo car the team was running on the second of the two days.

"It's going to be very similar to last year when we only had one test day with a team we didn't know to prepare for the race," said Estre.

#20 GPX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R: Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen, Richard Lietz

Photo by: Marc Fleury

KCMG's second car will be raced by Alexandre Imperatori, Edoardo Liberati and Josh Burdon, who drove together in the Nurburgring round of the GTWCE Endurance Cup last month.

Dubai entrant GPX, which made a one-off entry into the Pro class at Spa last year, is running two cars in GTWCE enduros this season and will contest Spa with a familiar line-up.

Factory drivers Patrick Pilet, Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell will share one car as usual, while Louis Deletraz will make his second appearance of the season alongside Romain Dumas and Thomas Preining.

Dennis Olsen, who drove for GPX at the Nurburgring, has moved across to the Frikadelli Porsche squad and will drive alongside Timo Bernhard and Frederic Makowiecki.

Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Bernhard, who scratched plans for his own team to race at Spa back in June, will be making his second GTWCE appearance of the season despite announcing his retirement from the cockpit at the end of last year.

Read Also:

Spa 24 Hours abandons plans for 25-hour race

With eight entries, Porsche is numerically the strongest manufacturer in the Pro class, which makes up exactly half of the 56-car entry - some way down on last year's 72-car field. KCMG, GPX and Frikadelli are joined in representing the Weissach marque by GTWCE regular teams ROWE Racing and Dinamic Motorsport.

Porsche's eight Pro cars compare to five for Audi, three each for Bentley, Lamborghini and Ferrari, two each for Mercedes and BMW and a single car apiece for Honda and McLaren. Aston Martin and Lexus bring up the total number of marques on the grid to 11.

A record total of 39 cars are registered to score points in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, of which Spa is the third round following the Bathurst 12 Hour back in February and the Indianapolis 8 Hours, which took place last weekend.

BMW scored a one-two with its two Walkenhorst Motorsport-run M6 GT3s at Indianapolis, with Augusto Farfus, Nicky Catsburg and Connor de Phillippi taking honours.

It puts BMW in the lead of the IGTC manufacturers' standings by a single point from Mercedes, with Porsche third, 10 points off the lead. One more race is scheduled for after Spa, the Kyalami 9 Hours in December.

The full 24 Hours of Spa will be available to livestream on Motorsport.tv - Oct. 24-25 HERE.

#34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3: Augusto Farfus, Nicky Catsburg, Connor De Phillippi

Photo by: Bob Meyer

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