Portimão will welcome some of the biggest names in global motor racing on 16–18 October when GT World stages its spectacular season-closing event.
An incredible field featuring more than 60 GT3 cars and 10 manufacturers will contest the three-hour race on Saturday evening (17:00 GMT+1), with a host of titles to be decided at the Portuguese venue. The event will see Max Verstappen join GT World with his own Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing squad, facing off against the very best in global GT talent.
These are some of the key stats heading into the weekend.
• This will be the third time that GT World has raced at Portimão after Sprint Cup meetings in 2014 and 2015. Since the most recent visit, in September 2015, there have been 116 GT World Challenge race weekends.
• Luca Stolz and Markus Winkelhock were on the grid for the 2015 event. Both were also present in 2014, along with Maximilian Götz and Dominik Baumann.
• This weekend's 61-car field will set a record for the biggest Endurance Cup starting grid outside the 24 Hours of Spa. There have been five instances of a 60-car grid, the most recent being at Barcelona last year.
• This will be the first Endurance Cup race without Jules Gounon since Paul Ricard in 2016, meaning Gounon went 10 years without missing an event. The French-Andorran ends a run of 50 consecutive participations, during which he won Spa twice and picked up two Endurance titles.
• It is also the first without Raffaele Marciello since the Swiss driver made his series debut in 2017. This ends a run of 48 consecutive participations for the two-time Endurance champion and 2022 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa winner.
• This will be the 50th Endurance Cup participation for Ezequiel Perez Companc, who becomes the 10th driver to reach this milestone. The Argentine made his series debut at Monza in 2016 and has since achieved a Silver Cup win at the 24 Hours of Spa (2021) and one overall podium (Silverstone 2019).
• Just two cars have completed every lap of the Endurance Cup season: the #2 Boutsen VDS Porsche and the #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter. Aggregate times put the #48 clear of the #2 by 4 minutes 27 seconds.
• The total distance covered across the four rounds is 879 laps, adding up to 5,688.86 kilometres.
• Should the #48 Mercedes-AMG fail to win on Saturday, the Team Mann-Filter crew will become the third consecutive overall Endurance Cup drivers’ champions to secure the title without a race victory. It was achieved for the first time by AF Corse in 2024 and repeated last year by Rutronik Racing.
• Maro Engel and Lucas Auer could go one better by winning the Endurance Cup and combined GT World titles without standing on the top step. Having wrapped up the Endurance crown at the Nürburgring, they need to finish P6 to be absolutely sure of the combined title this weekend.
• Winward Racing will wrap up the Endurance teams’ title if Comtoyou Racing does not take pole on Friday evening. The Belgian squad requires maximum points, with Winward failing to score, if it is to take this crown.
• By far the closest fight is for the Gold Cup Endurance title. Klingmann/De Wilde/Tramnitz have 89 points, while Fleming/Prette/Goethe have 86 and Birch/Schandorff/Ebdrup have 78. They represent ROWE Racing, Garage 59 and Selected Car Racing respectively.
• There is a realistic scenario whereby all three finish on level points: this would require Selected Car Racing to win from pole with Garage 59 second and ROWE in third. In this case, Selected Car Racing would be champions on a countback.
• The Bronze Cup Endurance fight is led by Dustin Blattner (Kessel Racing) with 87 points, followed by Darren Leung and James Kellett (Paradine Competition) on 71. Blattner’s teammate Dennis Marschall is listed in P1, but should be considered invisible as professional drivers cannot win this title alone.
• However, Marschall is bidding to become the first Platinum-graded driver to win the combined Bronze Cup crown solo. The German has shared with Blattner and Constantin Dressler this term. While a pro cannot win Sprint or Endurfance titles solo, they can claim the combined title alone.
• Marschall leads this classification by 20.5 points from Rinat Salikhov and Marvin Dienst (Winward Racing), who must win to have any chance of stopping the Kessel driver.
There will be 13 drivers making their GT World Challenge Europe debuts this weekend. Only Paul Ricard and the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa saw more newcomers.
• Max Verstappen (#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing)
• Pietro Armanni (#8 Car Collection Motorsport Porsche)
• Nikita Mazepin (#20 Team Motopark Mercedes-AMG)
• Kasper Jensen (#24 Steller Motorsport Corvette)
• Sebastião Malucelli (#41 Razoon – more than racing Porsche)
• Nicola Lacorte (#51 AF Corse Ferrari)
• Nigel Schoonderwoerd (#77 KPX Motorsport BMW)
• Max Moritz (#269 High Class Racing Porsche)
• Raphael Rennhofer (#269 High Class Racing Porsche)
• Richard Wolf (#914 Razoon – more than racing Porsche)
• Max Mutschlechner (#914 Razoon – more than racing Porsche)
• Leo Pichler (#914 Razoon – more than racing Porsche)
• Daryl De Leon (#992 Paradine Competition BMW)
SERIES LAP RECORDS
• Quali – 1m42.589s – Tomas Enge, #3 G-Drive Lamborghini (2014)
• Race – 1m44.937s – Laurens Vanthoor, #1 Team WRT Audi (2015)
