And so, the time has come: another exciting season of the International GT Open is coming to an end, with another great finale and four exciting battles! The last round will recover its natural home, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, not available at this period in the last two years because of works. The very technical 4.657-km track, the warm atmosphere and the many attractions of nearby Barcelona have always been a perfect recipe for a grand season’s finale, and this will certainly be one of those: for the twentieth time in 21 editions, the overall title will be decided at the last round, with three contenders, representing three different car brands, in the fight, and games open also for the Pro-Am, Am and Teams’ crowns. Traditionally, the Barcelona finale is also attracting a great field, and 35 entries are confirmed for this year’s season-closer.
PRO: FERRARI, McLAREN AND PORSCHE IN THE THREEWAY FINAL BATTLE
There will be three contenders for the top honours: leading the standings are young Brits, Tom Emson and Tom Lebbon, in the black-and-yellow Ferrari 296 GT3 of Elite Motorsport, who have conducted a superb campaign, taking five race wins and coming to the last stop in the position of the clear favourites. Their 16-point advantage, with 30 still to be awarded, is a comfortable buffer but insufficient if something doesn’t go the right way.
Their main challenger is another young Brit, Zak Meakin, at the wheel of the Greystone GT McLaren 720S shared almost all time with Dean Macdonald. With only one win but eight podium finishes, Meakin has been a champion of consistency, but he will need a stellar last round to clinch the title.
The mathematics say that there is a third contender, but with a gap of 27 net points, Pietro Armanni and Alex Fontana are almost on an impossible mission. Still, things are not over until they are over. The Italian-Swiss have driven the Porsche 911R to a brilliant maiden campaign for ZRS Motorsport, clinching four wins.
Not all of it will be title battles, and there will be many teams and drivers seeking to end the season on a high among the 13 Pro entrants. This will certainly be the case for Christian Mansell and Maxi Götz, among the front-runners during the year but barred from the final battle by a late retirement in the Monza 500 GT Open. Team Motopark is fielding two more Mercedes in Pro, for series regulars Marcelo Ramírez-Dominik Baumann, joined again by Nikita Mazepin, this time paired with Marcos Siebert.
To be watched closely is the young Italian-Portuguese duo formed by Leonardo Moncini and Rodrigo Testa, boosted by their two recent successes in the Villorba Corse Lamborghini and the undisputed revelation of the year. Eager to clinch their maiden success are Rafael Durán and Tommaso Mosca in the Ferrari of AF Corse, who also fields Yaroslav Veselaho and Lorenzo Ferrari and supports the Double TT Racing-entered car of Lorenzo Colavita-Gilles Renmans in their second outing of the season.
McLaren’s representation will be impressive in number and quality. Greystone GT is fielding a second car, with young British GT star Callum Davies joining McKenzy Cresswell, and Optimum Motorsport returning for a one-off to a championship dear to the team’s heart, with US racer Ford Koch and Joe Osborne, for whom it will be a comeback as well. The British driver turned into a brilliant TV commentator won twice in Barcelona some years ago.
Debuting in the series will be Spanish squad SMC Motorsport, directed by Emilio de Villota Jr. Its 720S will be in the very capable hands of Spain’s Alejandro Geppert, who made his GT Open debut recently, and a driver to be nominated.
PRO-AM: A BRITISH-SWISS DUEL AT THE TOP
The Pro-Am class, with 14 cars entered, is again the best-attended, and the level of competition does not change, nor does the intensity of the title battle. It is a duel between two, among two teams that contested their first full campaign in the GT Open. Charlie Bateman is in the lead, in the Blackthorn Aston Martin sporting a very distinctive livery of purple and yellow waving stripes. The Brit, again paired with former GT Open champion Henrique Chaves, with whom he has conquered two of his four wins, has only 8 points more than his direct rival, Swiss young gun Alexander Fach, also a 4-race winner in the family-run team’s Fach Auto Tech Porsche, shared most of the time with Alexander Schwarzer. With 20 points still to be awarded, the fight promises to be hot.
Behind the leading duo, many other pairs have shone throughout the season and will be candidates to race wins. Marcin Jedlinski and Karol Basz, in the Olimp Racing Ferrari, aim at a maiden win this season and at securing the final third position.
Three other 296 GT3s are entered in the class: the Norik Racing car of Japan’s Norikaru Shibata and Charlie Fagg, another former GT Open champion, the AF Corse of Laurent De Meeus-Vincent Abril, and the Into Africa Racing by Dragon of Xolile Letlaka-Stuart White.
Former Pro-Am champions and long-standing regulars Dexter Müller and Yannick Mettler are always to be taken into account for victory, at the wheel of the Mercedes in the class, entered by SPS automotive performance. At this round, another AMG, the fourth of the team, is entered by Motopark, for the Dutch pair formed by Nigel Schooderwoerd and Yelmar Buurman. The ‘old’ Audi R8 LMS has continued to be extremely competitive in the series, with Libor Milota-Filip Salaquarda (ISR Racing) and Michaël Blanchemain-Jim Pla (Saintéloc Racing) conquering one win each.
Two McLarens have been campaigning the whole season, with Darren and James Kell in the Trackfocused car, and Andrei Borodin and Ollie Webb in a Greystone GT-entered car. There will be two BMW M6s at the start, with the Pedersen Racing car of Danish duo Lars Pedersen-Mikkel Pedersen, who share a surname but have no family ties, and a new unit entered by Schubert Motorsport. The stalwart German squad will be making its debut in the series, for Polish pair Hubert Darmetko-Fabian Dybionka, orphans of the PTT Racing car that was destroyed at Monza.
AM: A TRADITIONAL PORSCHE FERRARI-DUEL
Lively and closely fought this year, the Am class is also off for a great final title battle, offering a duel between a Porsche and a Ferrari, probably the most traditional confrontation in GT racing. Arriving in Spain as the standings duel is Joel Monegro Reyes, who could become the first driver from the Dominican Republic to clinch a GT title in Europe. The Caribbean, at the wheel of a Fach Auto Tech Porsche, has won four races and has a 10-point lead over Adrian Lewandowski, in the Ferrari entered by Austria’s Baron Motorsport. At Barcelona, Monegro will be associated with Thomas Kiefer, while Lewandowski will again be solo.
The 8-car field includes all the championship regulars: defending the Prancing Horse colours will be Brazilian duo Marcelo Hahn-Galid Osman (AF Corse), winners of three races, and Poland’s Stanislaw Jedlinski-Krystian Korzeniowski (Olimp Racing), who have one success. Polish outfits are dominant in the class, with three other cars entered: the GoodSpeed Racing Aston Martin of Piotr Wira-Denis Waszek, the Förch Racing Porsche of Jakub Dwernicki-Tomasz Magdziarz, and the Sendom Racing Lamborghini of Seweryn Mazur, who drives solo, as does Mexico’s Alfredo Hernández in the Grupo Prom Mercedes.