Vanthoor will contest the three-hour race as a one-off for Century Motorsport aboard its BMW M4 GT3 on the 26-28 April, amid WEC duties for the German producer inside the hypercar class.
The drive was initially for Dan Harper, nevertheless in March Leung’s former co-driver secured a last-minute call-up for the British GT season in one amongst Century’s completely different BMWs – so, Vanthoor was finally chosen for Silverstone.
“Will most likely be specific,” talked about Vanthoor of his forthcoming debut, which can most likely be dwell and free on Motorsport.tv. “ closing 12 months’s effectivity from Darren and Dan, there’s not quite a bit we’ll do to do greater than that, so for optimistic we’re going to attempt to do the similar.”
Silverstone will most likely be Leung’s first British GT race since clinching the championship inside the 2023 season finale having skipped this 12 months’s opening weekend at Oulton Park.
It bought right here after he and Harper initially decided to not defend their crown, nevertheless a one-off spherical at Silverstone was on a regular basis the plan until the 23-year-old secured a seat for the season.
“I would prefer to have completed the Silverstone 500 with Dan,” talked about Leung, who acquired the race with Harper in 2023.
“Circumstances modified and we wanted to evaluate completely different decisions. Fortuitously, BMW has a extremely deep pool of producing facility drivers and Dries was on the market for Silverstone.”
Vanthoor must nonetheless carry quite a lot of qualities though as a result of the 25-year-old is a three-time GT World Downside Europe Sprint Cup champion and 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours winner inside the LMGTE-Am class.
Image by: JEP / Motorsport Images
“Velocity-wise, he’s excessive tier,” added Leung. “Nonetheless I’ve on a regular basis admired his methodology. I do know he’ll most likely be flat out at every different and that’s one factor I really admire.
“We’re not racing for components, a consequence or maybe a podium, I want to defend that win and that’s the mentality we’ll have.”
It has been an in another case gradual start to Century’s British GT advertising and marketing marketing campaign as its biggest consequence at Oulton Park was ninth inside the first of two one-hour races that weekend.
Elsewhere, Optimum Motorsport is working a second McLaren 720S GT3 for Silverstone with Le Mans Cup duo Fran Rueda and Andrew Gilbert as its Silver-Am crew.
It is part of a 44-car grid for British GT’s second race meet of the season, which moreover choices the series return of 2011 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough who’s sharing one amongst Group RJN’s McLaren 720S GT3s with Chris Buncombe.