Rovanperä will face familiar names at the start of the 24-hour race

As preparations for the Monte Carlo Rally get underway, heading to the Middle East to take part in the 24-hour race is on the unconventional side.

But shortly before Christmas news was announced that Calle Rovanperä would make his endurance racing debut at the Dubai 24 Hours next week. That only underlines that he is really feeling “recharged” ahead of his full-time WRC return this year, following a partial campaign in 2024 with a race-winning program in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux.

The 24-year-old Finn ticks off one more from his bucket list at the Dubai Autodrome, before launching his bid to reclaim the WRC titles he won in 2022 and 2023 from Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville in the traditional Monte Carlo season opener on January 23-26. Will mark the item. As the 24-hour enduro is being staged for the 20th year.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Proton Huber Competition Rovanperä will be shared with four other drivers – Jukka Honkavuori, Jani Kakela, Marc Wallenwein and Joel Monegro – part of a deep entry list that includes the reigning champions of the World Endurance Championship in LMGT3. British Touring Car Championship and British GT, as well as three former Formula 1 drivers.

Alexander Malykhin’s performance en route to the inaugural WEC LMGT3 crown last year was so impressive that he was upgraded from bronze to silver status in the FIA’s driver rankings, effectively eliminating a title defense alongside Klaus Bächler and Joel Sturm. was stopped. But Malykhin, who is stepping up to LMP2 this season with the newly renamed CLX squad, formerly known as Kool Racing, will return to Porsche with a crew that should be considered among the favourites.

Entering as usual under the Pure RXing banner, he teams up with factory driver and 2023 DTM champion Thomas Preuning, 21-year-old Russian Alexei Nesov and 2020 Carrera Cup GB champion Harry King, who is Malykhin’s teammate in the Asian Le Mans Series . The pair reached the P2 podium together at December’s Sepang opener.

Bacheler will also be seeking to secure Porsche’s first Dubai victory following the GPX win in 2021. He joins Italian team Dynamic GT alongside teammates Anders Fjordback, Stanislav Minsky, Thomas Kiefer and Carrera Cup North America champion Loek Hartog.

BTCC champion Jake Hill is no stranger to sampling unfamiliar machinery; Made a podium debut on his Fun Cup debut at Oulton Park in October. But the West Surrey racing star faces another new challenge when he joins Era Motorsport to race their Ferrari 296 GT3 in Dubai.

After thrilling aboard the AC Cobra at last year’s Goodwood Revival aboard the AC Cobra, Hill will reprise his successful partnership with historic racer Ollie Bryant, and team up with ERA regulars Ryan Dalziel, Dwight Merriman and Kyle Tilley. Will make.

Another BTCC race winner last season, 2012 World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff, will also head east to rejoin Team Parker Racing’s Bentley line-up, which finished 10th in 2024. He joins team regular Scott Malvern as well as father-son duo Shaun. And Maxwell Lynn.

Rob Collard has considerable history racing BMWs in the BTCC, but has only driven Lamborghini and Mercedes machinery since beginning the GT racing chapter of his career in 2020. That will change when the newly-crowned double British GT Champion gets his first taste. New BMW M4 GT3 Evo team for 2025 in Dubai with Century Motorsport, who raced his son Ricky in the 2018 British GT opener.

Collard will be joined by car regulars Ahmed Al-Harathi, whose WRT-entered machine took an outright victory at last year’s GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup round at Monza, and Century’s 2023 British GT champion Darren Leung, the latter’s 2024 GTWCE Will connect with teammates. Toby Sowery and Joshua Caygill, winner of the final British GT round of 2024, complete the roster of cars entered under the Paradine Competition banner.

Cadillac GTP factory driver Earl Bamber, two-time Le Mans winner, meanwhile will campaign an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 entered by his own Earl Bamber Motorsport squad in the Pro-Am sub-class.

Elsewhere, ex-F1 racers Vitaly Petrov and Sergei Sirotkin have been included in the all-Russian SMP Racing Mercedes line-up, which also includes Kirill Small, Denis Remenyako and F3 race winner Alexander Smolyar.

Nikita Mazepin also features in the Graff Racing-prepared GTx Class entry. He will race the new LM GT built by UAE-based Rossa Cars alongside 2015 WEC P2 class champion Roman Rusinov, one-time Super Formula racer Harrison Newey and Evgeny Kireev.

Adding to the eclectic nature of the entry list, three-time Formula E race winner Nico Prost returned aboard the Team CMR Ginetta G56 in the GT4 class after finishing 20th, alongside Ginetta owner Lawrence Tomlinson, his son Freddy and factory driver Mike Simpson. Will team up with. Overall with Toro Verde last year.

Reflecting the importance of the event as a warm-up for the regular European season, especially after the switch from Hankook Tire to Michelin, several major sportscar squads have also filed entries for the event organized by Dutch outfit Creventic. .

These include Comtou, the Belgian Aston Martin outfit that won the Spa 24 Hours last year with two Vantage GT3s, Le Mans polesitters Optimum Motorsport with a McLaren 720S and previous DTM title winners HRT – although three-time Dubai 24 winner Hubert Haupt remains with Mercedes ahead of his planned switch to Team Ford.