Bentley confirms factory-backed Total 24 Hours of Spa assault with M-Sport

Bentley confirms factory-backed Total 24 Hours of Spa assault with M-Sport

Bentley will once again compete for overall hours at this year's Total 24 Hours of Spa, with a factory-back effort from M-Sport now confirmed alongside K-PAX Racing's previously announced programme

Spa will be at the heart of the brand's Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered Pirelli assault, which will see a pair of Continental GT3s compete at all five rounds of the globe-trotting championship. 

Factory racers Jules Gounon, Maxime Soulet and Jordan Pepper will lead the line at IGTC events. French ace Gounon is a past Total 24 Hours of Spa winner, having triumphed for Audi Sport Team Saintéloc in 2017. The second car is set to feature newly-minted factory racers Oliver Jarvis, Alex Buncombe and Seb Morris, all of whom have previously represented Bentley at the Total 24 Hours of Spa.

The factory effort will be joined in the Ardennes by customer squad K-PAX Racing. Yesterday, the U.S. outfit detailed its plans to contest the full GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup schedule, including the Total 24 Hours of Spa, with a pair of Continental GT3s. The final driver line-ups for the marquee race are yet to be defined, with Gounon, Soulet and Pepper all combining IGTC duties with the K-PAX Endurance Cup programme in 2020. 

A further entry will come from the Bentley Motorsport Academy. This will run in partnership with customer outfit Team Parker Racing, with drivers scheduled to be announced at this week's Autosport International Show in the UK. Further customer efforts are also possible for GT World Challenge Europe. 

Bentley has been a fixture at the Total 24 Hours of Spa since its GT3 programme was launched in 2014. Its best finish came in 2017, when the #8 M-Sport machine driven by Soulet, Vincent Abril and Andy Soucek finished just eight seconds shy of the winning Audi. 

The 2020 running of the Total 24 Hours of Spa will begin in earnest on Wednesday 22 July with the annual parade to Spa town centre. This is followed by practice and qualifying on Thursday and Friday (July 23/24), with the race playing out across Saturday and Sunday (July 25/26).