Weekend Preview: Ferrari at 12 Hours of Sepang and in NLS season debut

The nine-race Nürburgring Endurance Series season kicks off with the sixty-eighth ADAC Westfalenfahrt. Frikadelli Racing Team and WTM will compete at the legendary German circuit with the brand-new Ferrari 296 GT3. The 12 Hours of Sepang returns after a seven-year absence from the international calendar, with Harmony Racing’s 488 GT3 Evo 2020 set to make its season debut.

NLS. The legendary Nordschleife opens its gates for the first round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series, which will see the teams and drivers competing in the sixty-eighth ADAC Westfalenfahrt, a four-hour race. Two Prancing Horse 296 GT3s will feature among the competitors. Felipe Fernandez Laser and Klaus Abbelen will take turns at the wheel of Frikadelli Racing’s number 30, which sets off on this new challenge in the SP9 Pro Am class, thanks also to its partnership with Rinaldi Racing. WTM Racing number 22 crewed by Leonard Weiss, Jochen Krumbach and Daniel Keilwitz will be the second Maranello car on the grid, again in the SP9 Pro Am class. The German team also partners with Rinaldi Racing. 

Qualifying will kick off at 8.30am on Saturday, 18 March, with the green light for the four-hour race at 12pm. 

12 Hours of Sepang. The weekend marks the return of the 12 Hours of Sepang, an endurance race not held since 2016, which will also see Harmony Racing’s Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 make its season debut. On this occasion, the race will last eight hours.

After playing a leading role in last year’s GT China Championship, Harmony Racing is back with a crew of David Weian Chen, Alexandre Imperatori and Ray Wu. Serving in the dual role of driver and Team Principal, last season David Weian Chen notched up the 488 GT3 Evo 2020’s first win in China, at the Ningbo circuit, and took part in the Macau Grand Prix. His CV includes a victory at Sepang in the 2019 GT Masters Asia. After helping Harmony Racing to a second-place finish in the GT3 Pro class in the China Endurance Championship last season, Imperatori returns to the Malaysian track, where he came third in 2014. A gentleman driver trained in the Ferrari Challenge APAC, Ray Wu is gearing up for his first race at the wheel of a 488 GT3 2020.

The weekend programme includes two free practice sessions on Friday, from 3pm to 4.30pm and 8pm to 9.30pm. On Saturday, qualifying runs from 9.45am to 10.50am, while the eight-hour race kicks off at 2.30pm. 

All times are local.