Manthey Porsche to enter Spa 24 Hours
The Manthey Porsche team will later this month bid to add victory in the Spa 24 Hours to its tally of wins in the Nurburgring 24 Hours
Porsche's factory team in the 2013 World Endurance Championship, which has won at the 'Ring five times, will field a solo 911 GT3-R for factory drivers Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet in the Blancpain Endurance Series blue-riband on July 27/28.
Team boss Olaf Manthey insisted that the entry was being made on a privateer basis.
"This was a race we wanted to do with our sponsors," he said. "We wanted to be able to fight for the podium, so I asked Porsche if they would give me this line-up.
"We want to try to win Spa, but that will be up to the Balance of Performance. It's not so bad for Porsche, but I think there will be some other cars that are faster over the distance."
Manthey, which took GTE Pro honours at last month's Le Mans 24 Hours, is returning to the Spa 24 Hours for only the second time. It contested the 2011 race with a Pro-Am line-up under the Haribo banner and ran two factory Porsche 911 GT3-RSR development cars in 2006.
Aston Martin Racing's plans to mount a factory assault on the race in conjunction with the GPR Racing squad have failed to come to fruition.
The Belgian team will still contest the race and has been loaned factory drivers Darren Turner and Jamie Campbell-Walter to drive its Pro class car alongside Bertrand Baguette.
Nurburgring 24 Hours frontrunner Rowe Racing has entered the race for the first time with a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG for Klaus Graf, Jan Seyffarth and Lance David Arnold.
Fortec Motorsport, which made its Blancpain debut at Silverstone at the start of June, will return to the series has Spa with one of its Mercedes. Multiple FIA GT Championship race winner Karl Wendlinger and Briton Oli Webb, who raced for the team in the Rockingham British GT round in May, are listed to drive.
The Vita4One BMW team, which as Vitaphone Racing won the Spa enduro on three occasions, will run only one of its two Blancpain entries in the 24 Hours.
A total of 70 car, including 28 in the Pro class, are due to take part in the race.
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