Garage 59 boss Andrew Kirkaldy has described the upcoming clash between the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Barcelona round and the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup Portimao finale as a “major test” for squads and drivers competing across both championships.
A total of 18 drivers maintain full-season commitments in both series, with Garage 59’s WEC McLaren 720S GT3 Evo squad particularly exposed because four of its six drivers — Marvin Kirchhoefer, Benji Goethe, Tom Fleming and Antares Au — also hold GTWC Europe Endurance Cup duties.
Originally there was no expectation of overlapping calendars, but a reshuffle of the WEC schedule amid the ongoing regional conflict in the Middle East turned the October 17-18 weekend into a critical junction.
Although GTWC Europe organiser SRO Motorsports Group shifted its three-hour Portimao Endurance Cup race to Saturday rather than Sunday to avoid conflicting with the six-hour WEC race, the scheduling clash still presents a headache for teams and drivers.
The provisional Barcelona WEC timetable has LMGT3 qualifying at 11:50 a.m. CEST on Saturday, with all FIA Bronze-rated drivers required to take part in this session, while the Hyperpole segment for Silver drivers is due to begin at 12:10 p.m. CEST.
The Portimao race is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. CEST.
Although this arrangement provides a window of more than five hours between the two events, Portimao operates in the WEST time zone and is therefore an hour behind Barcelona, which could make the journey tight for competitors if there are any delays in the Barcelona program, especially since there are no commercial flights into Portimao Airport.
The timing is less critical for the five Hypercar drivers taking part in GTWC Europe, and for Gold/Platinum-rated LMGT3 pilots, because they are not required to participate in Barcelona’s qualifying.
There could also be direct overlaps between Friday practice sessions for the two series, with Barcelona’s Friday schedule yet to be published.
While Kirkaldy emphasised that “teams will work it out one way or another,” he acknowledged that some drivers might decide against contesting both championships.
“There has been movement of races and timings to try to make it feasible, but it remains a substantial challenge,” he told Sportscar365, praising Stephane Ratel for being “very helpful” in relocating the Portimao event. “All it takes is for a plane to encounter a problem or a delay.”
“It adds a hefty cost, but we’re where we are, and I fully understand it isn’t really anyone’s fault—it’s one of those things.”
Kirkaldy also noted that the clash creates a bigger logistical hurdle in delivering the right drivers to the right places than it does for Garage 59 to operate cars at both venues.
“It isn’t too bad for us,” he explained. “We have a fairly large squad that also does other activities, including more (historic) Formula 1 operations that we manage, so we can draw on a solid pool of resources on that side, with some personnel overlapping from our race team.”
“From the personnel perspective it isn’t too severe. It isn’t ideal, as they wouldn’t be doing this every week, but it is doable.”
“GT World Challenge and WEC operate with largely separate staffing anyway, but engineers pose a challenge—we’ll manage, we’ve got some in place.”
Other teams affected include AF Corse and Team WRT, though for both outfits the degree of overlap between their WEC and GTWC Europe programs is even more limited compared with Garage 59’s operation.
