Even though GT1 cars won’t be accepted for this year’s 24 Hours of Spa, the race boasts a high quality field with a host of Ferrari F430s, Porsche 911 RSRs, Audi R8 LMS GT3s and BMW M3s.

There will still be GT1 action at Spa, but this will be restricted to two one-hour races that will count towards the new FIA GT1 World Championship.

The 2010 24 Hours of Spa will consequently only be open to GT2, GT3, GT4 and GTN cars entered by leading endurance teams and in the hands of a glittering line-up of drivers, including this year’s Le Mans winners Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller.

AF Corse will be running two Ferrari F430s, one of which will be in association with the German Vitaphone squad that has won the GT1 class at Spa several times. The N°2 car will be shared by Gimmi Bruni, Bert Longin, Eric Van de Poele and Toni Vilander.

Porsche, too, will be represented by some top names in its bid to prevent the Italian cars from winning, with cars entered by Prospeed Competition (N°3, Westbrook/Holzer/Lieb/Goossens), Imsa-Performance (N°16, Narac/Long/Pilet/Lietz) and BMS Scuderia Italia (Dumas/Bergmeister/Ragginger/Henzler), who came third in LMGT2 at Le Mans.

Audi has no intention of simply making up the numbers either: Phoenix Racing’s N°50 Audi R8 LMS will be shared by Kumpen/Fassler/Luhr/Rockenfeller, while the N°67 United Autosports car will be in the hands of Blundell/Brown/Dean/Cheever. Two other former Le Mans winners – Frank Biela and Stéphane Ortelli – will be on duty at WRT which has entered three Audi R8 LMSs.

BMW took a surprise win in the 2010 Nürburgring 24 Hours and the German make will be hoping for further success in Belgium with its two factory M3s for Müller, Müller, Lamy and Werner. For the record, the fastest times recorded during early July’s official Test Day were posted by M3s.

Other top names on the entry list include Romain Grosjean (Gravity International Mosler), Peter Kox (Reiter Engineering Lamborghini) and Stefan Johansson (WRT Audi).

The race starts at 4pm on Saturday, July 31.

24 heures de Spa, Audi, Ferrari, Michelin, Porsche