BMW teams WRT and ROWE Racing seal GT World Challenge Europe titles at Portimão finale
Team WRT won the GT World Challenge Europe overall team championship and ROWE Racing claimed the Endurance Gold Cup titles as BMW's customer teams closed the season in Portimão.
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What Happened
The BMW M Motorsport teams secured further titles at the season finale of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS in Portimão in Portugal. Team WRT clinched the overall team championship, which combines results from the Sprint and Endurance races, after already securing the Sprint Team Championship two weeks earlier. Jens Klingmann and Tim Tramnitz of Germany and Ugo de Wilde of Belgium are the new drivers' champions in the Gold Cup Endurance standings, and their ROWE Racing team won the team title in the Endurance Gold Cup. The final three-hour race also brought another victory and podium finishes in the individual cups.
Klingmann, Tramnitz and de Wilde won the Gold Cup class at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium with the #998 BMW M4 GT3 EVO run by ROWE Racing.
Team WRT secured the Sprint Team Championship.
At the Portimão season finale, Team WRT took the overall team championship and ROWE Racing's crew claimed the Gold Cup Endurance drivers' and team titles.
- #30 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Team WRT (Matisse Lismont, Amaury Cordeel, Ignacio Montenegro): fifth overall and first in the Silver Cup; the crew had already secured the Silver Cup titles in the Sprint, Endurance and combined standings ahead of the finale.
- #998 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, ROWE Racing (Jens Klingmann, Tim Tramnitz, Ugo de Wilde): second on the Gold Cup podium in the closing phase, enough to clinch the Gold Cup title.
- #42 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Oman Racing by Century Motorsport (Ahmad Al Harthy, Javier Sagrera, Calan Williams): third in the Bronze Cup.
- #991 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paradine Competition (Darren Leung, James Kellett, Robert de Haan): fourth in the Bronze Cup.
The Pro cars faced a harder afternoon in Portimão. The ROWE Racing #98 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Marco Wittmann, Jake Dennis and Philipp Eng started from P35 after a difficult qualifying session, worked its way up to sixth or seventh at one point and then dropped back after a puncture to finish 22nd overall. The Team WRT #32 car of Jordan Pepper, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde was running sixth after the opening phase when Pepper had to serve a drive-through penalty for causing a collision; the crew fought back up the field, but van der Linde was hit by a rival shortly before the finish and suffered the same puncture fate as the #98. The #46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Valentino Rossi, Neil Verhagen and Max Hesse picked up a puncture on the very first lap, dropped to P60, fought back to P14 and then retired with a technical issue the team still has to analyse.
80titles
Team Principal Vincent Vosse called the overall GT World Challenge Europe team championship the team's 80th title.
“I'm thrilled with this 80th title for the team! That's a great achievement. Our Silver car has played a huge part in making it happen. Huge congratulations to them for an exceptional season, both in sprint and endurance racing. It's nice to end the season with another title win. We would also have liked to be more successful in this race with our Pro cars, but they experienced some issues so on this side the race was not what we had expected. Congratulations also to our colleagues at ROWE Racing for winning the Gold Cup.”
“Our goal for this season was very clear: to win the GT World Challenge Gold Cup and the 24 Hours of Spa. I think we can be really proud that we achieved both. It was an extremely difficult race, with plenty of ups and downs. At one point, I thought we were going to win, then I thought we were going to lose. It was very emotional. We have to say that we weren't the fastest, but we were the most consistent throughout the year. We made it happen as a team.”
Previously from BMW
Our earlier coverage reported that BMW M Motorsport will chase victory at the FIA GT World Cup in Macau on 21-22 November with three BMW M4 GT3 EVOs run by Teams WRT and KRC. That entry puts the same BMW M4 GT3 EVO machinery used in the GT World Challenge Europe finale back on track for another GT3 event, with Team WRT again among the BMW squads involved.
Background drawn from MotorClaw's earlier coverage of BMW's official releases.
Why this matters
The Portimão finale settles the GT World Challenge Europe's season-long standings, which combine Sprint and Endurance results, so these titles reward a full year of results rather than a single race. Team WRT took the overall team crown, while ROWE Racing's Gold Cup crew won its class title in its first season in that cup, leaving both teams and their drivers with silverware despite a difficult weekend for the Pro cars.
Terms in This Story
- GT3
- A class of grand-touring race car built to a common international rule set, in which manufacturers sell racing versions of production-based sports cars to customer teams.
- Gold Cup
- One of the driver-classification cups within GT World Challenge Europe, with its own drivers' and teams' standings in addition to the overall championship.
- Silver Cup
- A further driver-classification cup in GT World Challenge Europe, run alongside the Gold and Bronze cups with its own Sprint, Endurance and combined standings.
- Drive-through penalty
- A penalty in which a driver must drive through the pit lane at a controlled speed without stopping, losing time to rivals.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.