Four titles, four stories: How the 2026 GTWC EU Sprint Cup was won

Credit: SRO/JEP

The 2026 GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) Sprint Cup is over, after Barcelona’s two races, with four champions crowned in Overall, Gold, Silver and Bronze and this is how they achieved it.

Another year, another Sprint Cup in SRO’s flagship GTWC EU Series is over. After three of the four cups were mathematically decided following a wet Race One at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit, Race Two provided us with the full set of champions, as the focus turns to the Endurance Cup finale, which will be hosted in Portimao from 15 to 18 October 2026.

These are the four class champions and how they got to their respective titles:

Overall champions - Bastian Buus & Ricardo Feller - No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 

The No.80 Lionspeed GP duo of Bastian Buus & Ricardo Feller spent last year racing in Bronze, with Feller spending the season driving the No.80 Porsche alongside Italian Gabriel Rindone, with Buus in the No.89 sister car pairing up with Canadian Bashar Mardini.

This year the team entered the No.80 in the Pro class, with Buus & Feller starting the season off strongly, securing both pole positions and a Race win at the Brands Hatch season opener, with the team unlucky to not have won both races, retiring from the lead with a steering issue.

Credit: SRO/JEP

From there on, results alternated between pretty strong highs and some lows, with a second place and 20th place finish at Misano, an 11th followed up by a win in France's Magny-Cours event, before the penultimate Zandvoort round provided a disappointing 23rd place finish, which was then exchanged for a brilliant second place in Race Two.

This result propelled the duo into the Overall championship lead entering the Barcelona finale, with a Pole position and second place in Race One enough to virtually secure the crown, then mathematically secured once Qualifying Two was cancelled after weather scares forced SRO’s hand, meaning the duo clinched their first title together and the 36th place in the final race of the season didn't actually matter.

Key season stats: 72 points - Two wins - Three Pole Positions - One Fastest lap

Gold champions - Tommaso Mosca & Matías Zagazeta - No.51 AF Corse Ferrari

AF Corse decided to pair Mosca, who finished second in last year’s International GT Open and had not raced in the GTWC EU Sprint Cup since 2021, with single-seater convert Zagazeta for the 2026 campaign, in what turned out to be an inspired choice. 

Credit: SRO/JEP

Despite not securing a single pole position, two wins, one in Brands Hatch and one in Zandvoort, along with a steady income of good results, among which were four second places and a third, were enough for the duo to clinch the Gold class championship with a race to spare. 

Alongside their consistency, the duo did not suffer a single retirement throughout the 10 races, a key component in their title bid. The duo gave AF Corse their first title since the 2022 Sprint double of Silver and Pro-Am championships, the last year before the most recent format of Overall, Gold, Silver and Bronze was introduced.

Key season stats: 106 points - Two wins - Five podiums - Zero retirements 

Silver champions - Matisse Lismont & Ignacio Montenegro - No.30 Team WRT BMW

Coming over from the world of Touring Cars, the 21-year-old Montenegro might not have expected such immediate success. Teaming up with another young and rising GT talent in Lismont and working in the world-class environment of Team WRT, they have proven themselves in the best way possible. 

Having already secured the Silver Endurance Cup title, the duo were the only ones to go into the Barcelona finale without any sort of pressure, as they mathematically secured the Silver crown after Zandvoort’s Race Two. 

Credit: SRO/JEP

This came about after five class wins and three further podium appearances, with four pole positions and two fastest laps to add to their resume, with their best performance coming at the second Magny-Cours race, where they finished second overall. 

A footnote of a Barcelona round, where a 33rd place finish was followed by their sole season retirement was subsequently of zero importance.

Key season stats: 123 points - Five wins - Eight total podiums - Four Pole Positions - Two fastest laps 

Bronze champions - Peter Dempsey & Eddie Cheever III - No.93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche

Returning to full-time racing for the first time since his last Indy Lights campaign in 2013, few could have imagined that Peter Dempsey would become a Bronze class champion straight away.

Pairing up with Eddie Cheever III to drive the No.93 Ziggo Tempesta Porsche, the duo had a decent start to their four-race campaign (as Bronze cars did not go to Brands Hatch due to pit-lane capacity issues), with two second places in the first four races.

Credit: SRO/JEP

This set them up as possible challengers for the title but certainly not as favourites, with the duo sitting third in the standings. The two remaining events though at Zandvoort and Barcelona, brought four consecutive wins to end the campaign, meaning a 10 point deficit to the No.87 Winward Mercedes pair of Marvin Dienst and Rinat Salikhov turned into an eventual 21 point lead come the end.

This was a return to the top for the team, after a slightly disappointing 2025 season, with Cheever securing his second Sprint Cup title after 2020's Pro-Am triumph alongside Chris Froggatt, with the aforementioned Dempsey getting his first career GT title.

Key season stats: 104 points - Four wins - Six total podiums - Three Pole Positions

The four teams champions were Team WRT in Overall, beating Lionspeed GP by 12.5 points (86.5 to 74), as well as in Silver, AF Corse in Gold with 107 total points and Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing in Bronze.