Team Profile: Boutsen Ginion Racing

Team Profile: Boutsen Ginion Racing

Having first competed in the Endurance Cup during the 2012 season, Boutsen Ginion Racing has a long association with GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS. The team bears the name of one of Belgium's most famous racing drivers, Thierry Boutsen, whose career included three grand prix wins during a decade in Formula 1, as well as multiple starts at the Total 24 Hours of 24 Hours.

Today, Thierry acts as an advisor to the family-run Boutsen Ginion outfit. Its management is overseen by his brother-in-law, Olivier Laine, while Thierry’s son, Kevin, works as an engineer.

The squad's initial Endurance Cup outings came in 2012 with McLaren machinery. A maiden class win followed at Circuit Paul Ricard in 2013, when the all-Belgian crew of Koen Wauters, David Dermont and Frédéric Vervisch triumphed in an MP4-12C GT3. 

In 2015 the team added a BMW M6 GT3 to compete for Am Cup honours and scored class victory at Silverstone with Karim Ojjeh and Olivier Grotz. The BMW programme continued through 2016, after which the team stepped back from the Endurance Cup to run Ojjeh in Blancpain GT Sports Club. The Saudi driver finished third in 2017, then swept to the title in 2018 with four wins and five runner-up finishes. This prompted a return to the Endurance championship in 2019.

Throughout this period Boutsen Ginion has made numerous Sprint Cup outings without running a full-season programme. Indeed, the team was on the grid for at least one Sprint weekend in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019.

In 2020 it will contest the Endurance Cup in the Pro-Am class, with Ojjeh entering his sixth season at the wheel of the team's distinctive black BMW alongside another vastly experienced bronze-graded competitor, Gilles Vannelet. Their line-up is completed by BMW works driver Jens Klingmann, while Nick Yelloly replaced the injured German at Imola. 

GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS – Endurance Cup

#10 Karim Ojjeh / Gilles Vannelet / Jens Klingmann (Pro-Am)

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