Sixteen cars from four classes will contest this weekend’s Asian Le Mans Series season opener at Zhuhai, in the largest LMP2 field in series’ history, although facing a significant drop off in LMP3 and GT entries.

ENTRY LIST: 4H Zhuhai

Six cars will be battling for the outright win in the LMP2 ranks with two Oreca 05 Nissans entered by Jackie Chan DC Racing x JOTA Sport and four Ligier JS P2 Nissans run by ARC Bratislava, Algarve Pro Racing, Eurasia Motorsport and BBT.

Pipo Derani will be part of BBT’s lineup alongside Davide Rizzo and Anthony Xu, while James Winslow has been added to the No. 8 DC Racing Oreca since the announcement of just David Cheng and Ho-Pin Tung in that car earlier this week.

The LMP3 class is made up of five Ligier JS P3 Nissans with one car each entered by Win Motosport, DC Racing, Taiwan Beer GH Motorsport, KCMG and Viper Niza Racing.

Richard Bradley is among the drivers in the class, driving the Win Motorsport car alongside William Lok and Philippe Descombes.

Only four GT cars are entered, compared to 16 entries at this race last year

FIST-Team AAI has a two-car program with one Mercedes-AMG GT3 and one BMW M6 GT3 while Tianshi Racing Team will enter an Audi R8 LMS.

Spirit of Race is listed to run a Ferrari 488 GT3 but currently has an entirely TBA lineup.

Rafaelle Marciello will drive the AAI Mercedes while Jesse Krohn and Chaz Mostert are in the team’s BMW.

Team NZ returns as the sole GT Cup entry with its Porsche 911 GT3 Cup driven by Graeme Dowsett and John Curran.

The 16-car total entry compares to 33 cars which took part in last year’s season-opener, and 26 that completed the full 2016/17 season.

Two Free Practice sessions will be followed by qualifying on Saturday, while the Four Hours of Zhuhai will get underway at 1 p.m. local time on Sunday.