A more colorful GTWC Asia grid in 2023

Proving that once the races went back the regrowth would come along, the FANATEC GT World Challenge Asia entry list reveals a diversified bunch for the 2023 season, set to start at Buriram this weekend.

While the 25 cars present in Thailand may not sound that much impressive compared to most of the last season, the variety of nations from where the teams come give back some of the color to the series, as the first host country will have two teams against names from China, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. The traction gained due to the  Japan Cup to cover for the lack of races in Southeast Asia did well to offer a good spectacle.

If you think that most of the returners or newcomers are coming out of nowhere, the national sportscar championships have been keeping the teams in shape, as Super GT and Super Taikyu in Japan and the Thailand Super Series had only a brief downtime during the lockdown, going almost non stop, while the China GT Championship faced some hurdles to come back but is in a stable state now. Recently the Thailand Super Series even included an invitational round in Singapore during the F1 grand prix weekend, while the Macau GT Cup was an end of the year alternative for the top level drivers from Asia and overseas.

Following the success of the Japan Cup, SRO opted to create the China Cup trophy for 2023, which will reward the greater China teams and is expected to work as a push for more entries while international racing in China is still an incredibly difficult task due to the country’s continuously tough policy about health and safety.

Only a single GT4 car will be present as Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Indonesia fields a Supra GT4, with the rest being GT3 cars.

The GT3 Pro-Am Cup, the top class of the field, comes with the absolute major numbers as 19 cars are present, as strong teams such Triple Eight JMR and EBM Giga Racing will see the bar set higher by the returns of Absolute Racing, HubAuto Racing, Porsche Center Okazaki, FIST Team AAI, AAS Motorsport and CRAFT Bamboo Racing, with Absolute Racing being involved in support runs along their own team running, which means they continue their strategy of having two separate manufacturers in their garage with Audi and Porsche. Between all names mentioned, the class alone will have four manufacturers represented, as the mentioned Audi and Porsche join BMW and Mercedes in the roster.

About the remaining classes, the Silver Cup will count with only two cars as Phantom Pro Racing will face off R&B Racing in an Audi vs. Porsche battle while the Am Cup the newcomers from Climax Racing will face off the regulars from AMAC Motorsport at the home of YKK Motorsport BBR.

As for the 2023 season itself, the full season entry list will feature extra entries once the Japan Cup rounds come, which means the car count will go up to 43 cars total.

Qualifying will be held from 11 A.M. local time on Saturday, with the first race starting later at 3:30 P.M. and the second race will be held at 11 A.M. on Sunday, with broadcasting being live on the GT World YouTube channel and SRO Motorsports Twitch channel.

PHOTOS: SRO