The familiar names Rovanpera will face on 24-hour race debut

As preparation for the Monte Carlo Rally goes, heading for the Center East to contest a 24-hour race is on the unconventional facet. 

But the news announced shortly before Christmas that Kalle Rovanpera will make his endurance racing debut in next week’s Dubai 24 Hours solely underlines that he’s certainly feeling “recharged” forward of his full-time WRC return this yr, following a partial marketing campaign in 2024 dovetailed with a race-winning programme in Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux.

Earlier than commencing his bid to reclaim the WRC title he gained in 2022 and 2023 from Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville on the normal 23-26 January Monte Carlo season opener, the 24-year-old Finn will tick one other merchandise off his bucket listing on the Dubai Autodrome because the twice-around-the-clock enduro is staged for a twentieth yr. 

The Porsche 911 GT3 R run by Proton Huber Competitors Rovanpera will share with 4 different drivers – Jukka Honkavuori, Jani Kakela, Mark Wallenwein and Joel Monegro – kinds a part of a deep entry listing that includes reigning champions of the World Endurance Championship in LMGT3, the British Touring Automobile Championship and British GT, in addition to three ex-Method 1 drivers.

So spectacular have been the performances of Alexander Malykhin on his technique to the inaugural WEC LMGT3 crown final yr that he was upgraded from bronze to silver standing within the FIA’s driver rankings, successfully precluding a title defence with Klaus Bachler and Joel Sturm. However Malykhin, who steps as much as LMP2 within the European Le Mans Collection this season with the newly-renamed CLX squad beforehand referred to as Cool Racing, will return to a Porsche with a crew that have to be thought of among the many favourites.

Entered as normal underneath the Pure Rxcing banner, he groups up with manufacturing facility driver and 2023 DTM champion Thomas Preining, 21-year-old Russian Alexey Nesov and 2020 Carrera Cup GB champion Harry King, who companions Malykhin within the Asian Le Mans Collection – the pair taking a P2 podium collectively in December’s Sepang opener.

Bachler may even be vying to attain Porsche’s first Dubai win since GPX triumphed in 2021. He joins Italian squad Dinamic GT, with team-mates Anders Fjordbach, Stanislav Minsky, Thomas Kiefer and Carrera Cup North America champion Loek Hartog.

BTCC champion Jake Hill isn’t any stranger to sampling unfamiliar equipment; as a maiden podium on his Enjoyable Cup debut at Oulton Park in October demonstrated. However the West Surrey Racing ace will face one other new problem upon becoming a member of Period Motorsport to race its Ferrari 296 GT3 in Dubai. 

Hill will reprise his profitable partnership with historics racer Olly Bryant, after the pair thrilled within the RAC TT Celebration ultimately yr’s Goodwood Revival aboard an AC Cobra, and workforce up with Period regulars Ryan Dalziel, Dwight Merriman and Kyle Tilley.

One other BTCC race winner final season, 2012 World Touring Automobile champion Rob Huff, may even head east to rejoin Staff Parker Racing’s Bentley line-up that completed tenth in 2024. He companions workforce common Scott Malvern, in addition to father-and-son Shaun and Maxwell Lynn.

Rob Collard has loads of historical past with racing BMWs within the BTCC, however has solely pushed Lamborghini and Mercedes equipment since he started the GT racing chapter of his profession in 2020. That can change when the newly-crowned double British GT champion will get a primary style of the new-for-2025 BMW M4 GT3 Evo in Dubai with Century Motorsport, the workforce that ran his son Ricky on the 2018 British GT opener in 2018.

Collard will hyperlink up with automobile regulars Ahmad Al-Harthy, whose WRT-entered machine gained outright within the GT World Problem Europe Endurance Cup spherical at Monza final yr, and Century’s 2023 British GT champion Darren Leung, with the latter’s 2024 GTWCE team-mate Toby Sowery and the winner of 2024’s last British GT spherical Joshua Caygill finishing the roster of a automobile entered underneath the Paradine Competitors banner.

#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-SeriesR: Earl Bamber

Picture by: Alexander Trienitz

Cadillac GTP manufacturing facility driver Earl Bamber, a two-time Le Mans winner, will in the meantime marketing campaign an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 entered by his personal Earl Bamber Motorsport squad within the Professional-Am sub-class.

Elsewhere, ex-F1 racers Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin are entered in an all-Russian SMP Racing Mercedes line-up that additionally includes Kirill Smal, Denis Remenyako and F3 race winner Alexandr Smolyar.

Nikita Mazepin additionally options on the entry in a GTX class entry ready by Graff Racing. He’ll race the brand new LM GT constructed by UAE-based Rossa Vehicles with Roman Rusinov, the WEC P2 class champion in 2015, someday Tremendous Method racer Harrison Newey and Evgeny Kireev.

Including to the eclectic nature of the entry listing, three-time Method E race winner Nico Prost will once more workforce up with Ginetta proprietor Lawrence Tomlinson, his son Freddie and manufacturing facility driver Mike Simpson aboard a Staff CMR Ginetta G56 within the GT4 class after ending twentieth general collectively final yr with Toro Verde.

Displaying the worth of the occasion as a warm-up to the common European season, significantly following its swap from Hankook tyres to Michelin, a number of distinguished sportscar squads have additionally lodged entries for the occasion organised by Dutch organisation Creventic. 

These embrace Comtoyou, the Belgian Aston Martin outfit that gained the Spa 24 Hours final yr taking two Vantage GT3s, Le Mans polesitters Optimum Motorsport with a single McLaren 720S and previous DTM title-winner HRT – though three-time Dubai 24 winner Hubert Haupt’s workforce stays with Mercedes forward of its deliberate swap to Ford.