KRC Eyes Full IGTC Season; Confirms Macau Return

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

BMW squad Team KRC has set its sights on a full Intercontinental GT Challenge campaign next year, while confirming plans to return to the FIA GT World Cup in Macau.

The Taiwanese team contested two rounds on this year’s IGTC schedule: Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour, where it finished fifth on debut, and the Suzuka 1000km, where its Bronze Cup entry retired but its Pro-Am M4 GT3 EVO took third in class.

Its expansion to a two-car Suzuka effort comes at a time that BMW is scaling back on its IGTC efforts, with no Pro class cars entered for the Japanese event.

Now team director Mars Kang has outlined ambitions to take on a full IGTC schedule next year that would allow its regular FIA Bronze-rated driver, ‘Tony’ Ruan Cunfan, to fight for Independent Cup honors.

It comes as the team prepares to field an M4 GT3 EVO on the streets of Macau in November for Augusto Farfus, who was part of the squad’s Pro-Am Suzuka 1000km effort and also drove for KRC in the end-of-season event in 2024.

Kang told Sportscar365: “Macau is in our plan. Last year we skipped it because we didn’t have any experience of torque sensors and we didn’t have a chance of test them. But this year we are going back with Augusto again.

“After Macau, if we can keep the car in good condition, we will ship the car directly to Bathurst. At least we will have one car there for Bronze or Pro-Am.

“And then a full IGTC program is in our consideration. We still need more funding to attend all of these big events. But it is under discussions.”

Kang revealed that an appearance in the 25 Hours of Spa Fun Cup race in early July planted the seed in Ruan’s mind about a possible full-season IGTC attack.

“Tony and a few of our drivers, including me, we entered the Spa 25 Fun Cup,” he said.

“It impressed us a lot, it’s a nice circuit and a nice environment. So this is why we started thinking about the IGTC for next year and the Independent Cup.

“We have a very short time for the preparation and to raise the budget, and nothing is sure yet, but we are trying hard.”

KRC expanded to a two-car GT World Challenge Asia effort this year, switching Maxime Oosten over to its new Silver-Am effort alongside Brian Lee, while Ruan shares the Pro-Am car with a rotating cast of works talent from BMW.

Ruan’s best results have been a pair of third places, one coming alongside Max Hesse at Fuji and the other with Neil Verhagen at Okayama.

Kang said he feels that having different BMW-affiliated pilots joining the team in GTWC Asia, with ex-works driver Jesse Krohn also joining the squad for the Mandalika round, has helped to push the organization forwards.

“We haven’t had just one driver all year, but having the M [factory] drivers who are used to tougher races as well as the European engineering support has been very good to allow us to grow up,” said Kang. “We are still learning and improving.

“I think the most important thing is the attitude of the team. I know some teams are quite conservative, or maybe there’s a language barrier, but we are very open and we try to absorb all the good things [from drivers and staff] to make a better team.”

Kang also reiterated desire to run a full lineup of BMW works drivers in IGTC events in future, even if he played down the prospect of it happening immediately.

“I would be proud to work more closely together with BMW,” he said.

“Actually, they asked me if I was interested in sending a Pro car to Suzuka as well. But we are not a big team like WRT, we always suffer budget issues, and we need more funding.

“Running a Pro car is my dream if it’s possible. We’ll try hard.”

Source: Sports Car 365