McLaren Motorsport GT racing driver line-up expands to 11 drivers

McLaren Motorsport confirms a new GT racing factory driver line-up for the 2025 season, with the programme expanding to eleven drivers across three tiers, from young drivers of exceptional ability to established professionals.

Heading the 2025 line-up will be five McLaren Factory Drivers. With Rob Bell’s recent promotion to Sporting Director, Germany’s Marvin Kirchhöfer, 30, becomes the longest-standing member of the line-up, and is once again joined by Briton Dean MacDonald, 24. German-Dane Benjamin Goethe, 21, steps up from Junior Pro status and is joined by two French drivers: Arthur Rougier and Simon Gachet. Rougier, 24, was the 2017 French F4 champion before switching to GT racing two years later. Gachet, 31, won the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup in 2020 and was part of the winning Team France squad in the FIA Motorsport Games GT Cup two years later.

The McLaren Junior Pro Driver category features three highly promising young drivers who will receive coaching from the Factory Drivers as they progress their careers. Germany’s Ben Dörr, 19, is a multiple German karting champion and has experience of racing a Dörr Motorsport McLaren GT3 EVO in the DTM. Britain’s Adam Smalley, 23, is a multiple one-make sportscar champion and finished third overall in the 2024 British GT Championship - his debut season - with a Garage 59 McLaren GT3 EVO. Also new to the roster is 20-year-old 2023 Autosport BRDC Award winner Joseph Loake. The British driver raced in FIA Formula 3 last year and will make the full-time switch to GT racing this season.

In the McLaren Graduate Driver category will be Josh Rattican, Aston Millar and Tommy Pintos. Britain’s Rattican, 20, is the reigning European GT4 Series Silver champion, having raced an Artura GT4 with Elite Motorsport, while fellow Briton Millar, 20, returns to the programme after impressing in an Artura GT4 in the 2023 British GT Championship. Spain’s Pintos, 19, was the inaugural McLaren Trophy champion in 2023 alongside Gonzalo De Andres. Having impressed in the championship over the last two years, he steps up into the McLaren driver programme after Bell invited him to a driver assessment.

Another initiative set to further expand the future talent pool for Factory Drivers will be the McLaren Trophy Academy. The Academy will allow silver-ranked drivers racing in the McLaren Trophy series’ globally to receive coaching and guidance as they start their professional racing careers. Promising candidates will hope to follow the footsteps of Pintos and move up the ladder of talent towards becoming fully fledged Factory-backed Drivers of the future.

“I’m delighted to welcome Arthur, Simon, Adam, Joseph and Tommy to the McLaren family and welcome back Aston as we expand our line-up to 11 drivers. We have a formidable roster of McLaren Factory Drivers heading up the squad as we enter the 2025 season with high hopes for strong results. With Rob Bell now our Sporting Director, they have an excellent mentor who will help in their individual programmes as well as their other activities, including coaching our Junior Pro and Graduate Drivers. These four very talented racers have between them won multiple championships in their junior careers, and we hope they will make the step up to Factory Driver status in the future.” Ian James, Director of Motorsport, McLaren Automotive

“This group represents a really strong line up of current and future talent for McLaren Motorsport. Dean has been part of the family for a while now and has progressed through the ranks and earned his stripes, so it’s really pleasing to have him as a fully-fledged Factory Driver. Similarly, Tommy Pintos impressed us all in McLaren Trophy over the past few years, so to have him move onto the factory programme demonstrates exactly what we want the one-make series to do, unearth future talent that we can nurture through the programme. It’s a really exciting bunch, and I can’t wait to see what they accomplish this season.” Rob Bell, Sporting Director, McLaren Automotive