Mercedes-AMG Teams Craft-Bamboo, Climax Reveal Lineups

Photo: Craft-Bamboo Racing

Mercedes-AMG customer teams Craft-Bamboo Racing and Climax Racing have revealed their driver lineups for the upcoming GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS season.

Craft-Bamboo’s No. 31 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo will be shared by Cao Qi, who stays with the Hong Kong-flagged squad after finishing 10th overall last season, and Jayden Ojeda, who contested last year’s third round at Fuji Speedway with the team.

Ojeda was recently confirmed as a Mercedes-AMG factory Junior driver by the German marque, and will combine GTWC Asia with a season in the equivalent Australian series.

Meanwhile, the sister No. 77 car, which unlike the Pro-Am No. 31 car is entered for the Silver Cup, will be piloted by Jiatong ‘Alex’ Liang, who moves across from the Harmony Racing squad, alongside an as-yet unnamed teammate.

“We are very happy to welcome Cao Qi back again for this year and to have him joined in the No. 31 Pro-Am entry by Jayden Ojeda, who is a very exciting young talent coming up the AMG ranks,” commented Craft-Bamboo team principal Darryl O’Young.

“We are also returning to the Silver class with the No. 77 entry and welcoming Alex Liang back to the team – he is coming over to our GTWC Asia line-up from our Super Taikyu program, and we look forward to announcing our lineup very shortly for the No. 77.

“Overall, we hope to take a big step forward this year; it was a tough season for us in 2024 so we are looking to turn things around and have a strong season ahead.”

Climax meanwhile will retain the services of Mercedes-AMG Performance driver Ralf Aron, who contested the majority of the 2024 with the Chinese team, and Zhou Bihuang to drive its No. 2 car entered in the Pro-Am class.

Its Silver Cup entry, the No. 44 car, will be piloted by Zhang Yaqi and Ling Kang.

Elsewhere, Team KRC’s BMW M4 GT3 Evo will be shared by Ruan Cun Fan and Maxime Oosten, who contested the final four rounds of the 2024 season together.