GT Academy champion Jann Mardenborough is making a return to competitive racing with a season-long seat in a factory-backed Ford Mustang GT3 for the 2025 GT World Challenge.
After winning GT Academy in 2011, Mardenborough had something of a whirlwind career — and a good chunk of it in GT3 cars, racing for the RJN Motorsport team in a variety of Nissan GT-Rs in the then-Blancpain GT series.
He went on to race GT-Rs in Super GT, before a reorganization of Nissan’s motorsports commitments saw him lose his GT500 seat at the end of 2020, becoming the simulator driver for Nissan e.dams in Formula E. Already the last GT Academy participant still in Nissan colors, when this also concluded in 2022 it brought an end the Nissan/GT Academy association after more than a decade.
We’ve since seen Jann take the wheel of yet another GT-R in the Super Taikyu series, and return to RJN’s fold for races in British GT and the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps — this time in a McLaren 720S GT3 — in one-offs but this new role will allow him to compete for a championship again for the first time since 2020.
Haupt Racing Team (HRT), has partnered with Ford Performance to campaign its Mustang GT3 across a number of European series in 2025. That includes the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) and ADAC Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie (NLS), as well as the GT World Challenge.
Mardenborough will race the #64 in the rebranded series, following title sponsor Fanatec’s financial issues, competing in the Pro category in all five races. He’ll be joined by Ford Performance factory driver Arjun Maini and experienced GTWC racer Thomas Drouet, formerly of the AKKA/Akkodis and Boutsen VDS teams.
HRT will also campaign a second car, running in the Silver Cup category, with the #65 squad comprising Romain Andriolo, David Schumacher, and Finn Wiebelhaus. Maini will also be racing the HRT Mustang in DTM this season, as well as NLS alongside Schumacher in a second car.
The 2025 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Series gets underway next weekend, with a six-hour race at Circuit Paul Ricard.
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