The new Mercedes-AMG GT3 will finally make its racing debut next month. The event that it will be joining is the Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring or VLN long-distance championship.

According to Autosport, the special variant of the Mercedes-AMG GT will make its appearance in the round four of the VLN on July 4. It will be driven by the test and development drivers of Mercedes namely Bernd Schneider, Jan Seyffarth and Thomas Jager.

It should be noted that the car will serve as the replacement of the famous Mercedes SLS AMG GT3. Jochen Bitzer, head of AMG customer sport, said in the report that the outing of the race car in the event is merely a test of how it will perform in a real race condition with all its parts installed. The source claimed the new GT3 car of Mercedes underwent around 12,000 kilometers of testing before finally hiting the race track.

As a recap, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 was unveiled at this year’s Geneva Motor Show. It was chosen as the replacement of the SLS AMG GT3 because of its lighter armor. However, instead of carrying the usual 4.0-liter biturbo V8 power unit of the Mercedes-AMG GT, its automaker decided to retain its predecessor’s 6.2-liter naturally-aspirated V8 engine.

Earlier, AMG’s Christian Enderle explained that the reason for not using the M178 engine on the new GT3 race car is due to the power unit’s limitations. The AMG exec stated the unit was only designed to deliver up to 503 hp. With the old naturally-aspirated engine, he projected that the output could go as far as 550 hp.