12 October 2020- Earlier this year, GPX Racing presented the livery of its three Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, directly inspired by those of the Porsche 908/3s in Gulf colours entered for the 1970 Targa Florio.

50 years after the double scored by the Stuttgart prototypes, the driver lineup comprising Frédéric Fatien, founder and owner of the team, Jordan Grogor and works Porsche driver, Mathieu Jaminet, won the Coppa Florio after 12 hours of unremitting effort on the Enna-Pergusa circuit in Sicily.

The livery created this year by Sean Bull Design for the team’s cars entered for the GT World Challenge Europe and the 24H Series bear witness to GPX Racing’s passion for the history of motor sport. The GP Extreme Group, to which the team belongs, is involved in F1 Historic racing and also owns Group C prototypes that took part in the Le Mans 24 Hours in the 1980s and 90s. When the possibility of racing in a round of the 24H Series Europe on the lands of the Targa Florio and the Coppa Florio emerged there was no way the team, victorious in last year’s Spa 24 Hours, could give it a miss.

The first rendezvous with the legendary event took place on the Wednesday before the race on invitation of a descendant of Vincenzo Florio’s, creator of the Targa Florio. A moving visit to the old pits of the famous course was organised where photo and video shoots took place.

The GPX Racing staff and drivers then focused on their participation in the 20th Coppa Florio – 12 Hours of Sicily. First of all Mathieu Jaminet set pole then the #36 Porsche won the Coppa di Martino that represented the first six hours racing by a lap on Saturday. The next day in the late afternoon the gap had stretched out to five laps for Grogor, Fatien and Jaminet who succeeded in the Coppa Florio results Guy Edwards and Emilio de Villota victorious in their Lola T600-Ford in 1981!

Pierre-Brice Mena: “To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Porsche’s great victory in the Targa Florio, we were determined to run one of the make’s works drivers. So we were delighted to be able to count on Mathieu Jaminet and to win with him. I really appreciated the welcome of the Sicilians who were very proud to be able to organise this race again. Great drivers and major manufacturers took part in it in the past. Now we’re concentrated on the Spa 24 Hours in which we’re representing Porsche in the context of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and we’re absolutely determined to defend our title.”

Remember that Jaminet set the fastest time during the two days’ preliminary tests at the end of September for the Spa 24 Hours. In the 72nd running of the event he will share the wheel of the #12 GPX Racing Porsche with two more Porsche works drivers, Matt Campbell and Patrick Pilet. The sister car #40 will be driven by Romain Dumas, also a Porsche works driver, and he shares it with Thomas Preining who, this year, has achieved the status of Porsche Young Professional, and GPX Academy driver, Louis Delétraz. The Belgian Classic will take place behind closed doors from 22nd to 25th October.