Bike racing legend Valentino Rossi will return to the World Endurance Championship with the WRT BMW squad in 2025.
The Italian’s second season within the LMGT3 class of the WEC has been confirmed alongside along with his team-mates within the #46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO for the eight-race schedule incorporating the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Rossi will share the automobile with new BMW signing Kelvin van der Linde and Ahmad Al Harthy, with whom he was teamed throughout his maiden marketing campaign.
Van der Linde has changed Maxime Martin, Rossi’s associate in WEC and GT World Problem Europe since 2023, after his departure to Mercedes was introduced in December.
Affirmation of a second season within the WEC follows Rossi’s choice to slim down his racing programme for 2025.
The 45-year-old recommended in the summertime that he wanted to select between racing in WEC and the GTWCE, earlier than hinting on the finish of his 2024 marketing campaign {that a} continuation at world championship degree was most probably.
“Very pleased to proceed my expertise within the WEC, as final 12 months was a robust debut season,” mentioned Rossi.
#20 BMW M Workforce WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Valentino Rossi
Picture by: Shameem Fahath
“We had some good races together with two podiums and we need to attempt to be stronger and sooner. We’ll work onerous along with BMW M Motorsport to enhance our efficiency and be extra aggressive in each race.”
WRT’s second LMGT3 entry, #31, will probably be raced by the already-confirmed Augusto Farfus and Timur Boguslavskiy and Yasser Shahin.
Boguslavskiy is shifting over from the Auto Sport Promotion Lexus group, with which he contested three WEC rounds final 12 months.
The Russian was previously an everyday on the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 within the GTWCE with the French group, successful the Endurance Cup title in 2019 and 2023.
Australian Shahin is switching over from the Manthey Porsche group with which he completed second in LMGT3 final 12 months and received the category at Le Mans.
His announcement follows the transfer of Sean Gelael and Darren Leung, Farfus’s team-mates final 12 months, from WRT to Manthey for the brand new season.
#31 Workforce WRT BMW M4 LMGT3: Darren Leung, Sean Gelael, Augusto Farfus
Picture by: Andreas Beil
The #31 BMW will probably be entered underneath The Bend Workforce WRT banner in reference to the race observe that Shahin developed, The Bend Motorsport Park, in South Australia.
BMW has additionally firmed up the IMSA SportsCar Championship line-ups for M4s raced by manufacturing facility drivers forward of the season-opening Daytona 24 Hours on 25-26 January.
Dan Harper and Max Hesse will a race GT Daytona Professional entry for Paul Miller Racing and will probably be supported by Farfus and Jesse Krohn on the IMSA Endurance Cup rounds.
Neil Verhagen, who graduated like Harper and Hesse from BMW’s revived junior scheme, will share a second Miller Professional entry with Madison Snow, whereas Van der Linde and Connor De Phillippi will be part of them for endurance programmes.
Rob Foley, who has been contracted to BMW since 2023, will share an everyday GTD class entry run by Turner Motorsport in a full North American marketing campaign with Patrick Gallagher and will probably be joined for the enduros by Jake Walker and at Daytona by Jens Klingmann.
Learn Additionally:
On this article
Gary Watkins
WEC
Valentino Rossi
Workforce WRT
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