Endurance Weekly: April 1st-7th
- DIVEBOMB Endurance Team
- Apr 8
- 9 min read
Written by the DIVEBOMB Endurance Team, Edited by Morgan Holiday
ELMS - 4 Hours of Barcelona - Read the full in-depth report here
The European Le Mans Series (ELMS) 2025 season kicked off with a thrilling race that ended in a grandstand finish, with the No.83 AF Corse LMP2 PRO/AM car taking the overall victory.
The race itself began relatively cleanly, with battles up and down the field in all four classes. Notably the No.3 DKR Engineering LMP2 PRO/AM at the hands of Laurents Hörr went from 21st on the grid all the way to first in just a few laps.
This was partially due to a start infringement, where Hörr not only jumped the start, but cut the corner at Turn 2 and gained a large advantage. The No.3 was awarded two drive through penalties for those incidents. Hörr still showed some lightning fast pace, however, and pulled a near 10 second gap on the rest of the field before the penalties were handed out.
The first interruption of the race was caused by the No.66 Ferrari LMGT3, who went off into the gravel on the outside of Turn 3, becoming beached and needing to be rescued by the marshalls. The ensuing pit stops shook up the order slightly, with the No.47 CLX car coming to the front, ahead of the No.18 IDEC Sport backed by Genesis Magma Racing.
There was a scary moment for Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer and the No.34 Inter Europol LMP2 crew as they were hit at the high speed final corner, and sent careening towards the gravel trap by the No.12 WTM LMP3. The No.12 tried to come across the track to enter the pits, only to find Simmenauer on his inside. Fortunately both cars were able to return to the race relatively unscathed.
Just over half an hour later, the No.12 car would find itself in the same gravel trap it sent the No.34 into, bringing out the second Virtual Safety Car (VSC) of the race. On the restart the order at the front was the same as before, only this time after chasing down the No.47 for about 20 minutes the No.18 IDEC Sport car got past and into the lead.
With just 45 minutes remaining, yet another stoppage occurred, this time only a Full Course Yellow (FCY) rather than a VSC. The cause was the No.11 Euro International LMP3 after they stopped on the inside of Turn 4 with a mechanical problem.
On the restart, Matthieu Vaxivière in the No.83 AF Corse in LMP2 PRO/AM began to show some very good pace, jumping up to second overall and gaining on the leader. One of their premier challengers in the PRO/AM class, the No.99 AO Racing ‘Spike the Dragon’, suffered a heartbreaking mechanical failure in the final half hour of the race that took them out of contention for a class win.
No stoppage was required for ‘Spike’, but soon after a VSC would be needed. Both the No.47 CLX LMP2 and No.4 DKR LMP3 stopped on separate parts of the track, both with mechanical failures. This late Safety Car bunched the field up, ready for a two lap shootout to the finish.
After pitting under the Safety Car, the No.83 AF Corse car restarted fourth, but Vaxivière quickly moved his Oreca 07 up to the back of the leading No.18 IDEC Sport car, and with a last lap move coming out of Turn 5 sealed the win for the PRO/AM crew, taking both their class and overall victories.
It was a bittersweet victory for the IDEC Sport crew in LMP2, but full championship points nonetheless. In LMP3 the No.17 CLX car took victory after fending off challenges from multiple other cars. Finally in LMGT3 the Iron Dames Porsche No.85 crossed the line first, the all-female crew leading most of the race in their class.
With the thrilling opener at Barcelona behind us, the ELMS grid moves its sights north, towards France and the Circuit Paul Ricard for the second round on the fourth of May.
GTWC - Paul Ricard 6 Hours Preview
The opening round of GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) kicks off this weekend with a six-hour Endurance Cup race at the Circuit Paul Ricard. The green flag will wave at 14:00 GMT on Saturday as 59 GT3 cars will race down to Turn 1, the biggest field since 2015. The grid will be split into three classes: bronze, silver, gold and pro, depending on the driver ratings.
Although the track consists of 13 corners, the majority of which are high speed, teams will try setting up their cars to have the best straight line speed, as the track has a 1.7km straight. Cars which receive greater engine restrictions from BOP will be affected, and may struggle with race pace.
On Saturday morning the teams will take to the track to decide the order they will start in. Qualifying will be split into three sessions, all three drivers in each car will have to set a lap. The race itself will last six hours, with a winner being crowned in each class. The main focus will be on the pro class, which has no driver restrictions.
Paul Ricard will be the debut for Max Verstappen’s new project: Verstappen.com Racing. Harry King, Chris Lulham and Thierry Vermeulen will drive the No.33 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo in the gold class. The team will only enter the Endurance Cup this year.
Coming into the official prologue test sessions, many teams finalised their driver lineups for the 2025 season, along with the release of the official entry list. Some notable points from the last week include:
The No.63 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 will be driven by Jordan Pepper and Luca Engstler as a Pro entry in the sprint series, and the two will be joined by Mirko Bortolotti for the Endurance Cup. The No.19 Silver car will be driven by Dante Rappange, Jiatong Liang, Ivan Ekelchik and Baptiste Moulin, the latter of two will drive the car in the sprint series. The third sprint car will be piloted by Georgi Donchev and Christian Engelhart, who is coming off the back of a knee injury in 2024.
Marco Mapelli and Frank Perera both moved from Grasser Racing to another Lamborghini customer, Vincenzo Sospiri Racing, who will be led by the No.163 Pro car at the hands of Mapelli, Perera and Sandy Mitchell. The team will also enter the No.60 car into the Silver class, driven by Michele Beretta, Alessio Deledda and Finlay Hutchinson.
Recently famed for being the focus of the Gran Turismo movie, Jann Mardenborough will return for his first full season of racing since 2020. The British driver will race in the No.64, Pro class, HRT Ford Performance Ford Mustang GT3 in the Endurance Cup. He will team up with Arjun Maini and Thomas Drouet. The sister Ford will be raced by Michael Schumacher’s nephew, David Schumacher, with Romain Andriolo and Finn Wiebelhaus as a silver entrant.
In the Bronze class, Dan Harper and Darren Leung will pilot the No.991 BMW M4 GT3 Evo for Paradine Competition in the Sprint cup. They will be joined by Sean Galeal for the Endurance Cup due to previous driver, Toby Sowery, focusing his efforts on IndyCar reserve driver duties. Sowery will still compete in the 24 Hours of Spa, as the fourth driver in the No.991.
Lionspeed GP will enter their second season in GTWC with two bronze entries; Ricardo Feller and Gabriel Rindone will drive the No.80 car, while Bastian Buus and Bashar Mardini will race the No.89 Porsche 911 GT3 R. In the Endurance Cup, Lionspeed will enter the No.80 squad, with third driver, Patrick Kolb, team principal of the German team.
The race in Circuit Paul Ricard will be the first of 10 rounds, consisting of five Endurance Cup races and five Sprint Cup races.
IMSA - Long Beach Preview
The IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship will take to the streets of Long Beach this weekend for the third round of the championship, and the first round outside of the Michelin Endurance Cup. The 100 minute race will take place at 2pm local time on Saturday, with both SRO and IndyCar events being held during the weekend as well.
The IMSA event will feature GTP and GTD classes, with 27 entries from the two classes - 11 from GTP and 16 from GTD.
The GTP entries include the normal full season entries, two Porsche 963’s from Penske, two BMW M Hybrid V8’s from RLL, two Acura ARX-06’s from MSR, a singular Aston Martin Valkyrie, two WTR Cadillac V Series R’s and one from Whelen Engineering and a single Porsche 963 from JDC Miller Motorsports.
In GTD, a few changes have been made from the original full season GTD entries. As reported in last week's edition of Endurance Weekly, AO Racing will be reclassifying ‘Rexy’ from GTD PRO to GTD to make their entry eligible. Vasser Sullivan have also taken this decision with their pair of Lexus RC F GT3’s, reclassifying the No.12 and No.89 entries.
You can read the full preview for the IMSA round at Long Beach on our website on Thursday.
Breaking News
Esteban Masson to stand in for injured Ben Barnicoat in Imola
Akkodis ASP Team has announced that Esteban Masson will replace Ben Barnicoat for the forthcoming 6 Hours of Imola, the second round of the FIA 2025 World Endurance Championship.
Having sustained injuries from a mountain bike accident last month, Barnicoat had to sit out of Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as well as the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this week.
Masson will pilot the No.78 Lexus RC F GT3 with Finn Gehrsitz and Arnold Robin. The Canadian-French driver was part of the ASP’s full-time LMGT3 crew in the 2024 season and was then upgraded to Gold status for this year.
This marks another appearance with the French team, as Masson was initially set to stand-in the Briton only for WEC and IMSA rounds at Laguna Seca and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
He is also set to race for VDS Panis Racing in the European Le Mans Series under the LMP2 category. Last year, Masson competed under the LMGT3 category with Kessel Racing. Alongside Takeshi Kimura and Daniel Serra, the trio brought their No.57 Ferrari to finish the championship in second place for the class.
Recently recovered from an injury, the 20-year-old’s stint with KCMG at NLS1 was his first race since a Super Formula Light testing crash at Suzuka last season.
“I’m grateful to return to FIA WEC with Akkodis ASP Team,” Masson commented. “I’d obviously first like to wish Ben a great and speedy recovery. On a personal level, I’m really looking forward to being back with the team after such a great first round in Qatar, and the aim is to make the best out of it with Finn and Arnold!”
DTM to run tweaked race format for 2025, two mandatory pit stops in Sunday races
Ahead of its fifth season under the GT3 regulations, ADAC announced that DTM has made tweaks to the race format, with teams now required to make two pit stops during the second race of the weekend on Sunday.
The new rule is one of the main changes that were made ahead of the eight-race campaign that is set to begin this month.
Drivers previously were mandated to make only one pitstop and tyre change per race. For the opening race of the weekend the format will remain unchanged with one pitstop, while all races will still run to 55 minutes plus one lap. Should the race trigger the Safety Car, that distance can be extended by a maximum of two joker laps.
The DTM season begins next weekend at Oschersleben.
It’s a Manthey 1-2 in DTM pre-season test at Oschersleben
Thomas Preining and Ayhancan Güven led a comfortable 1-2 for Manthey EMA during DTM’s official pre-season testing at Oschersleben.
The testing included a total of eight hours of running across two sessions. Preining and Güven topped the timesheets during the opening session, with the Austrian leading the duo by 0.324 seconds.
Jordan Pepper, who was the fastest in the morning session, swept up third place in his No.63 GRT Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2. As they set their times in the afternoon, Luca Engstler and Jules Gounon joined in fourth and fifth respectively.
No.22 Team Landgraf Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lucas Auer was the sixth fastest, with a mere 0.028 seconds ahead of defending champion Mirko Bortolotti. Bortolotti, who recently joined ABT Sportsline, brought forward the No.1 Lamborghini to finish in seventh.
DTM rookie and No.92 Manthey Junior Team Porsche driver Morris Schuring ended up just a 0.001 seconds adrift of the Italian. Maro Engel and Maximilian Paul rounded up the top ten, both ahead of Ben Doerr’s No.11 Doerr Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Aston Martin and Ford unfortunately had to settle outside the top ten places. Though, both Aston Martin and Ford are preparing to make their comebacks in the championship. As Arjun Maini’s lap was 1.499 seconds off Preining, this made the Indian the best-placed Ford driver in 19th overall.
The 2025 season will kickstart at the same circuit on April 25-27.
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