Sky Tempesta Racing is set to contest next year's Le Mans 24 Hours after earning an invite to the 2025 edition via the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Bronze Cup.
The Ferrari squad topped the classification, where points are scored per entered car over the season. It prevailed by two points over German outfit Rutronik Racing, which very nearly bagged the invite by winning the season-ending 6 Hours of Jeddah.
Indeed, the fight was so close that Rutronik was able to snatch the Bronze Cup teams' title away from Sky Tempesta on a tie-break. However, the Le Mans invite is not decided by either the teams' or drivers' standings. Instead, points are scored per entry and, crucially, there is no redistribution of points from ineligible cars.
As such the Bronze Cup teams' standings and the Le Mans invite classification are very subtly different. At the first round of the season, the Rutronik Porsche finished 10th in class but scored ninth-place teams' championship points because a pair of Kessel Racing Ferraris were ahead. For the purpose of the teams' standings, the second of these cars was invisible. But, in the Le Mans classification, the #97 Rutronik entry scored 10th place points.
A similar scenario occurred in Race 1 at Hockenheim. The Rutronik car finished eighth, behind both Barwell Motorsport entries. As such, the Porsche squad claimed seventh in the Teams title, but scored points for eighth place towards the Le Mans invite. It is for this reason that it came up two points short of an automatic place at the French enduro.
Pure Rxcing earned the 2024 Le Mans invite via the Fanatec GT Europe Bronze Cup. The Porsche squad ultimately ran the full FIA World Endurance Championship campaign and emerged as LMGT3 champions while also continuing in Fanatec GT Europe with its 911 GT3 R.