Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific ready to take up the challenge at iconic Macau Grand Prix

Five Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) are set to battle for overall glory in the FIA GT World Cup. 2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Pro-Am Champions Absolute Racing will field a Belgian duo in 2016 Macau winner Laurens Vanthoor, and former Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific Selected Driver Alessio Picariello.

Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Teams’ and Drivers’ Champions Origine Motorsport will again partner up with 2023 FIA GT World Cup Silver winner Leo Ye in the #566 car, while 2023 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Champion Thomas Preining makes his second appearance with Porsche in Macau.

The final entry in the FIA GT World Cup sees 2024 Porsche Mobil 1 SuperCup Teams’ and Drivers’ Champions Schumacher CLRT field Laurin Heinrich, who has enjoyed a strong year to date, taking the GTD Pro IMSA title.

Three Porsche entries will hit the track in the Greater Bay Area GT Cup (GT4), including 2024 Porsche Junior and recently-crowned Porsche Carrera Cup Asia champion Alessandro Ghiretti, making his Macau debut with Z.SPEED Motorsport. The team is also set to run Malaysian racer Leona Chin Lyweoi in the #88 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport.
 
The final entry sees Yang Xiaowei tackle the event with Chinese squad 610 Racing, which has been a regular in a variety of Chinese championships, including Porsche Sports Cup China, China Endurance Championship and GT Sprint Challenge, taking multiple GTC and GT4 victories.

Track action begins on Thursday 14th November with both categories heading out for Free Practice, before taking on qualifying on Friday. The FIA GT World Cup quintet will battle it out in the 12-lap Qualification Race on Saturday, before the main events on Sunday.

Alexandre Gibot, Managing Director Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific Ltd.: “Ever since we announced our line-up for Macau last month, we’ve been looking forward to this incredible event. It’s one of the most prestigious races in motorsport, and we’re really excited to see the cars hit the track. As always we face strong competition so while we’ve got five excellent drivers in the FIA GT World Cup we know it will be hard work ahead! It will be a busy weekend with the GT4 cars also competing in the Greater Bay Area GT Cup (GT4) but the teams have prepared for this event and we are certain it’ll be a great race. The entire team at Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific are fully focused on supporting our eight customer entries achieve the best possible results they can at this phenomenal event.”

Full Schedule (local time, UTC +8)
All sessions will be livestreamed on the official FIA YouTube channel.

Thursday
 11:05 - FIA GT World Cup Free Practice 1
12:15 – Greater Bay Area GT Cup Free Practice
14:35 – FIA GT World Cup Free Practice 2
 
Friday
 11:00 – Greater Bay Area GT Cup Qualifying
14:05 – FIA GT World Cup Qualifying
 
Saturday
 13:50 – FIA GT World Cup Qualification Race (12 laps)
 
Sunday
 08:15 – Greater Bay Area GT Cup Race (12 laps)
12:25 – FIA GT World Cup (16 laps)