The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT seeks to confirm good start of the season at Brands Hatch

The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT seeks to confirm good start of the season at Brands Hatch

06/05/2015

The Blancpain Sprint Series is back this weekend, for the second round of the season, with a stop in one of the world’s most legendary tracks: Brands Hatch. The track in the green hills of Kent has kept its character intact throughout the decades and is a real drivers’ track, loved equally by racers and fans. The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT starts its short journey to the UK with the intention to confirm an excellent start of the season and do as well as at Nogaro, the first round of the Sprint calendar, where it collected one win and three other podium positions. All four Audis R8 LMS ultra of the Belgian squad are ready to fight for top honours, but it makes no doubt that the pair most anxious to shine is the one formed by Laurens Vanthoor and Robin Frijns. The duo of young guns was forced to watch their team mates race in France from the pits, as their car got damaged beyond repair in an accident during qualifying.

Team Principal Vincent Vosse is confident ahead of the British round: “We had quite a good start of the season”, he admits, “with one win at Nogaro in the Sprint Series and a very nice second at Monza in the Endurance season-opener, without forgetting the 1-2 in the VLN race that served as preparation for the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. We want to continue on this trend and do well in Brands Hatch, where we did not have good races last year despite clinching the pole. It’s a tough circuit for our Audis, not in terms of performance, but in terms of overtaking, because of the very sharp changes of rhythm. This means that we have to rely on our drivers to compensate and make the difference and we trust all of them. We need to score heavy points and aim at the podium to keep the good positive momentum.”

There is one additional special reason why the entire team wants to shine in Brands Hatch. “This will be our first Blancpain race since J.G. Mal-Voy, the President of the Belgian Audi Club, passed away a couple of weeks ago”, explains Vosse, “J.G. has been a driving force behind this programme since the very beginning and he played an instrumental role at every stage of the life of the team since its creation. We will remember J.G. in the livery of the cars and I am sure everybody in the team will feel an extra push on their back this weekend.”

Thanks to their win in the Qualifying race and a superb second in Main Race at Nogaro, Stéphane Ortelli and Stéphane Richelmi are the B.A.C. Team WRT best-placed championship at the moment, and the two Monegasque drivers will do their outmost to keep this form. Enzo Ide-Christopher Mies, who took two podium finishes in France, and Frank Stippler-James Nash, who also showed podium pace at Nogaro, are expected to be among the front-runners, while Laurens Vanthoor-Robin Frijns are definitely in a revenge mode. “Our season starts now and we need to catch up the points lost. I just hope that we already paid our tribute for the season to bad luck”, says Vanthoor, who was fighting against flu in recent days.

The two Brands Hatch races will be run on Sunday, at 12:10 and 16:25, respectively, in Central European time.

Blancpain Sprint Series - Round 2

Brands Hatch, United Kingdom

9-10 May 2015

Timetable (all times local = CET -1)

Saturday 9^th May 2015
09:25-10:25 Free Practice 1

11:55-12:55 Free Practice 2
17:30-17:45 Qualifying 1

17:52-18:07 Qualifying 2

18:15-18:25 Qualifying 3

Sunday, 10^th May 2014
11:10-12:10 Qualifying Race

15:25-16:25 Main Race

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT

#1 Laurens Vanthoor (B) – Robin Frijns (NL) (Pro)

#2 Enzo Ide (B) – Christopher Mies (D) (Pro)

#3 Stéphane Ortelli (MC) – Stéphane Richelmi (MC) (Pro)

#4 James Nash (GB) - Frank Stippler (D) (Pro)

Provisional Drivers’ standings (Pro Cup) after Round 1 of 7 :

1. Martin-D.Müller (BMW Z4) 31 points

2. Ortelli-Richelmi (Audi R8 LMS ultra) 27

3. Ide-Mies (Audi R8 LMS ultra) 19

4. Seefried-Siedler (Ferrari F458) 13

5. Abril-Buhk (Mercedes SLS) 12

6. Stippler-Nash (Audi R8 LMS ultra) 8

Provisional Teams’ standings (Pro Cup) after Round 1 of 7 :

1. BMW Sports Trophy Team Brazil 31 points

2. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT 27

3. HTP Motorsports 16

Rinaldi Racing 16

5. Team WRT 10

5. ISR 10