Belgian · Born 1999 · #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 · BMW M Team WRT
Dries Vanthoor races the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8. His older brother Laurens Vanthoor races the #6 Porsche 963. Two brothers, two competing manufacturers, two genuine GTP title contenders — on the same track, at the same time. Motorsport rarely produces sibling rivalries at this level, and Sebring 2026 has one. It is, quite simply, one of the best stories in the sport.
Dries Vanthoor was born in 1999 in Belgium — six years after his brother Laurens. The Vanthoor family's racing culture shaped both brothers from an early age, and Dries followed Laurens into karting and then into professional motorsport. Belgium has a remarkable tradition of producing world-class endurance racing drivers, and the Vanthoor brothers represent perhaps the peak of the current generation of that tradition.
Growing up watching an older sibling succeed at the highest level is both inspiring and pressure-creating. Dries was never just "Laurens's little brother" to those who watched him develop — his natural talent was evident from his earliest professional outings — but the family comparison was always present. Rather than being diminished by it, Dries appears to have been sharpened by it.
Dries Vanthoor came through the GT World Challenge Europe series — one of the most competitive GT racing championships in the world — and quickly established himself as one of the fastest young drivers in Audi's factory program before transitioning to BMW. The GT World Challenge is effectively the proving ground for the next generation of factory GT drivers: it is genuinely fast, the cars are seriously powerful, and the circuits demand real precision.
His pace was immediately apparent to the engineers and team managers who worked with him. Young drivers who are merely fast are common at that level; what stood out in Dries Vanthoor was the combination of raw speed with the racecraft maturity of someone much older — the ability to manage races, read situations, and avoid mistakes while still pushing at the limit.
The FIA World Endurance Championship is Formula 1's sister series for sportscar racing — run by the same governing body, using some of the same circuits, with the same manufacturer prestige attached to success. Winning the GT drivers' championship in WEC — competing against Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, and other factory teams with full factory resources — is one of the most prestigious achievements available in GT racing globally.
Dries Vanthoor's WEC GT championship title marks him as genuinely elite at the international level. It demonstrates that his ability extends beyond regional or single-manufacturer success into the kind of global validation that defines a factory racing career. For a driver born in 1999, winning a WEC championship is an extraordinary achievement — and it came while his brother was simultaneously achieving success in parallel programs.
WRT (World Racing Team) is a Belgian racing operation — fittingly, a Belgian team running a Belgian driver — that has grown from GT racing roots into one of the most successful prototype operations in the world. WRT has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall, taken multiple IMSA championship titles, and built a reputation for exceptional race execution and engineering depth.
BMW's partnership with WRT for their GTP program means Dries Vanthoor has one of the sport's best infrastructure setups behind him. The BMW M Hybrid V8 — Bavarian engineering applied to a IMSA-spec prototype chassis — is a capable machine in the right hands, and Vanthoor's hands are very much the right ones.
Laurens Vanthoor is six years older than Dries and has been a Porsche factory driver for a decade. At Sebring 2025, Laurens won overall in the #6 Porsche. At Sebring 2026, Dries will be trying to prevent a repeat — while also achieving his own Sebring victory for BMW.
The brothers compete in different manufacturer programs with different engineering teams, different strategies, and different cars. In a GTP class typically featuring ten or more competitive prototypes, it is entirely possible for the brothers' cars to find themselves fighting directly for position on track. That moment — when the #6 Porsche and the #24 BMW are wheel-to-wheel, with two brothers inside them — is what every motorsport fan watching Sebring 2026 will be hoping to see.
Family dynamics in competition are complex. Both brothers have been careful in media coverage to express mutual respect while making clear that on track there are no family courtesies — each drives to win. That is exactly as it should be, and it is exactly what makes the story so compelling.
At just 26 years old at the time of the race, Dries Vanthoor brings a combination of elite credentials and youthful aggression that can be a decisive force in long-distance racing. Watch for him in traffic — young drivers who are confident in GT machinery can find time in exactly the situations where more cautious drivers lose it. And watch for any moment when the #6 Porsche and #24 BMW end up in close proximity. When those two cars meet on track, history is being made.
Laurens Vanthoor — six years older, Porsche factory driver, 2025 Sebring overall winner — is on the same starting grid. The brothers are direct rivals at Sebring 2026: different manufacturers, competing cars, same family. Follow both the #6 and the #24 throughout the race for the full story.
The BMW M Hybrid V8 is BMW's first dedicated GTP prototype, developed to compete at the top level of North American and global sportscar racing. It uses a twin-turbocharged V8 engine — a layout BMW has long championed in road cars and motorsport — paired with a hybrid system that feeds additional power through the front axle. Managing the power delivery of a front-electric, rear-combustion all-wheel-drive prototype adds a layer of complexity to driving that rewards precise, well-trained inputs.