The final round of the 2020 Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered by Pirelli gets underway at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, Guateng, South Africa on Thursday December 10, bringing to a close a season that has seen track action in Australia, the United States and Belgium.
12 cars will take to the grid on the iconic 4.529 km circuit including four representatives from Audi, three from Porsche two each from BMW and Bentley and one from Honda.
Audi will be represented by two Audi R8 LMS GT3s entered by Audi Sport team WRT, the #31 car to be driven by Markus Winklehock, Kelvin van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor and the #32 car piloted by Mirko Bortolotti, Charles Weerts and Frederic Vervisch. Audi Sport Team Car Collection sees Mattia Drudi, Patric Niederhauser and Christopher Haase share the driving duties in the #44 Audi while Martin Lechman, Milan Dontje and Dennis Marschall will pilot the #45 Silver Cup entry.
Porsche sees Matt Campbell, Patrick Pilet and Mathieu Jaminet reunited behind the wheel of the Total 24 Hours of Spa-winning #36 GPX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R while drivers championship leaders Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor are joined by kevin Estre in the #54 Dinamic Motorsport entry.
The sole Pro-Am entry at Kyalami, the #9 Lechner Racing Porsche will be driven by Saul Hack, Andre Bezuidenhout and Dylan Pereira.
BMW’s entries are courtesy of Walkenhorst Motorsport with the #34 BMW M6 GT3 being driven by Augusto Farfus, Nicky Catsburg and Sheldon van der Linde while Martin Tomczyk, David Pittard and Nick Yelloly pilot the #35 entry.
In their final outing as factory team, Bentley Team M -Sport has entered its #7 and #8 Bentley Continental GT3s, the former to be driven by Jules, Gounon, Maxime Soulet and Jordan Pepper while Alex Buncombe, Seb Morris and Oliver Jarvis share the driving duties in the #8 car.
The sole Honda NSX GT3 entry, the #30 Team Honda Racing entry, is driven by Mario Farnbacher, Renger van der Zande and Betrand Baguette.
After three rounds, Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor lead the drivers standings on 31 points, one point ahead of the #36 GPX Racing crew of Jaminet, Pilet and Campbell. Bentley’s Maxime Soulet, Jules Gounon and Jordan Pepper lie third on 28 points.
With 25 points up for grabs for the winners and just 11 points separating the top six places in the standings, Saturday December December 12’s nine-hour contest will be highly competive.
In the manufacturers standings, Porsche hold a 29-point advantage at the top of the table with Mercedes-AMG in second on 50 points. Audi Sport lies third just four points behind the Affalterbach marque.
Track action begins on Thursday December 10 with night practice at 17:35 local time (15:35 GMT) whilst qualifying gets underway at 14:45 local time on Friday December 11. The lights go out for the 2020 Kyalami 9 Hours at 12:00 local time on Saturday December 12.
Live coverage and tining can be found here.