Monday 13 / October / 2025
BARCELONA (SPAIN): Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT’s Al Faisal Al Zubair, Jens Klingmann and Ben Tuck won the combined GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Teams’ Sprint and Endurance Teams’ title in the Gold Cup category at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday afternoon.
By rounding off their 2025 campaign with a magnificent second position in the overall standings at the final endurance round, they also finished as runners-up to the Verstappen Racing.com trio of Thierry Vermeulen, Chris Lulham and Harry King in the Gold Cup Endurance Drivers’ and Teams’ standings.
The BMW M4 GT3 EVO trio finished the race as runners-up to the triumphant Garage 59 McLaren team of Louise Prette, Dean Macdonald and Adam Smalley.
Oman-based Al Zubair said: “This was an amazing way to end the season with second overall and second in class as well. That goes to show how strong the Gold Cup has been this year. I am extremely happy with how the whole season went. I think the Verstappen car deserved to win the championship. They were very strong throughout.
“To take my first overall podium in the GT World Challenge and to be second is amazing with the best drivers in the world in this championship. Qualifying was a bit difficult but in the race the strategy worked well and the track temperatures were better. That suited our engine. It all worked perfectly. It was a great way to end the season. The strategy was the key today. This is something I have always aimed for and, to do it today, was icing on the cake.”
The three-hour race started under a second formation lap but the action was stopped around the half-hour mark following a heavy collision between the Kessel Racing Ferrari and the Winward Racing Mercedes.
The yellow flag and the safety car controlled the next 17-18 minutes of the race and several teams, including Al-Manar Racing, opted to make a premature driver change under the safety car around the 45-minute mark. Al Zubair had slipped to sixth before climbing back to fifth in the Gold Cup standings.
Al Zubair handed over to Tuck with 20 laps on the clock and 12 minutes left of the first stint. Initially, they slipped to seventh in the Gold Cup standings but the pit stop proved to be a master stroke and Tuck duly climbed to fourth and then third in the Gold Cup standings behind the Optimum Motorsport and Garage 59 McLarens.
Racing resumed with 2hr 01min on the clock and Tuck maintained third in the Gold Cup standings and climbed to fifth in the overall classification. The Briton settled into a comfortable pace as the second stint unfolded and retained third in the Gold Cup. He then overtook Leonardo Moncini in the Tresor Attempto Audi to snatch fourth overall just before the halfway mark of the race.
Tuck then passed Oliver Söderström in the Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin to snatch third. It meant that Gold Cup cars held the three overall leading positions in the race after 44 laps.
A stranded BMW forced a short full course yellow with 1hr 22min on the clock with light drizzle starting to fall on the circuit. Tuck managed to climb to second after the restart behind the Garage 59 McLaren when the Optimum Motorsport car made its final pit stop and lifted the Verstappen.com Aston Martin into third in the Gold standings.
A heavy crash into the wall that involved one of the Tresor Attempto Racing Audis then brought out another yellow flag with 68 minutes remaining and teams frantically began to make their final pit stops.
Klingmann replaced Tuck and Prette took the wheel of the race-leading Garage 59 McLaren with speeds restricted to 80km/h by the Delta pace ruling. Racing resumed with 53 minutes remaining and Klingmann managed to stay in second position, despite having to pass a couple of back markers and coming under initial pressure from Arthur Le Clerc in the AF Corse Ferrari in the tussle for second overall.
By lap 64, with 45 minutes on the clock, the German continued to shadow the race-leading McLaren and he kept his cool to stay in second place. Rowe Racing’s Raffaele Marciello began to apply the pressure on Klingman in the closing laps after passing the AF Corse Ferrari and the Swiss racer reduced the gap to less than a second before passing the German with less than three minutes to run. But Klingmann was not to be denied and he re-passed the Pro class-winning BMW on the 91st and final lap to confirm a sensational second overall in a gripping season’s finale.
The Al-Manar Racing team gave the BMW an initial shakedown in the paid tests on Thursday but the meat of the set-up preparation was carried out in the two-hour free practice session on Saturday morning.
Surprisingly, the Team RJN McLaren topped the times in practice with a best lap of 1min 41.180sec after 53 laps of the race course. The Garage 59 McLaren was second in the standings and the Al-Manar Racing trio did well to put the BMW into third position with a fastest run of 1min 41.672ec after sharing 44 laps on the circuit.
After a further pre-qualifying stint on Saturday afternoon, Smalley topped the times in Q1 for the Garage 59 McLaren team. Klingmann ran the BMW for four laps and a best run of 1min 40.906sec put him into fourth.
Prette carried on where Smalley left off to top the Q2 times for the Garage 59 Team and Tuck settled into third with a best run of 1min 40.121sec. Macdonald topped the Q3 times for Garage 59 and a fastest lap of 1min 40.431sec for Al Zubair meant that pole position fell to the Garage 59 Team with Al-Manar Racing lining up in fifth behind Team RJN, CSA Racing and Verstappen.com Racing.
The superb second place capped a memorable year with five Sprint races and five Endurance rounds held within the 2025 GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.
It all started with a podium finish and third place at Paul Ricard in April and was followed by outright Gold Cup victory in the second of the Brand Hatch Sprint races, a pair of third places in the two Sprint races at Zandvoort, Gold Cup success at Monza, one podium finish at Magny-Cours, Gold Cup success at the Nürburgring, another podium finish in Valencia and this weekend’s triumph in Barcelona.
These results were integral in bringing about victory in the combined Gold Cup Teams’ Championship and second place in the Endurance Teams’ and Drivers’ series.
OVERALL
TEAMS (combined) – final Gold Cup standings
1. Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT 200pts
2. Garage 59 166pts
3. Verstappen.com Racing 121pts
4. Emil Frey Racing 118.5pts
5. CSA Racing 117pts,
4. Tresor Attempto Racing 114pts, etc
DRIVERS (combined) – final Gold Cup standings
1. Chris Lulham/Thierry Vermeulen 239.5pts
2. Al-Faisal Al-Zubair/Jens Klingmann 196pts
3. Louis Prette 164pts
4. Harry King 121pts
4. Sebastian Øgaard/Leonardo Moncini 111pts, etc
GTWC ENDURANCE
TEAMS – final Gold Cup standings
1. Verstappen.com Racing 121pts
2. Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT 112pts
3. CSA Racing 94pts
4. Garage 59 60pts
5. Team RJN 48pts
6. Optimum Motorsport 42pts
7. Paul Motorsport 41pts
8. Herberth Motorsport 33pts
9. Tresor Attempto Racing 29pts
10. Ring Motorsport 23pts
DRIVERS – final Gold Cup standings
1. Lulham/Vermeulen/King 121pts
2. Al-Zubair/Klingmann/Tuck 108pts
3. Gachet/Rougier/Kell 94pts, etc
