Blancpain GT kicks off at Monza with three Vantage GT3's
Thursday, April 19, 2018
What is there not to look forward to this weekend but the start of the greatest GT3 series in Europe as the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup takes to the tracks for the first competitive time this year at Monza.
Amongst the usual large 54 car grid we are blessed this season with seeing three Aston Martin Racing Partner team entries from both returning Pro-Am Champion's, Oman Racing as well as the fruition of many months of preparatory work from Swiss based R-Motorsport with their two new Pro car entries.
Although returning to the series, the TF Sport prepared Oman Racing Team #97 entry returns with not just another driver line up but is also now entered into the new Silver Cup class for 2018. Ahmad Al Harthy has said a 'drivers goodbye' to last years co driver and fellow champion Jonny Adam (although the AMR factory driver is retained by the team for his professional input) and will this year be joined by fellow Silver ranked drivers Charlie Eastwood and Euan McKay - each with previous and existing driving duties with the team.
New to the SRO championship sees R-Motorsport step up not just in series but also in class of car being raced with two Arden Motorsport prepared V12 Vantage GT3's being entered into the tough and ultra competitive Pro class which fields a 'sell out' 24 car entry.
The two cars are also two of the newest examples of the fast and reliable GT3 platforms from the Prodrive factory.
Jumping into Pro class with both eyes wide open, R-Motorsport list a driver line up that is extremely capable of taking the race to the series main protagonists in their 'other' GT3 platforms. The #76 car features drivers Maxime Martin, Alex Brundle and Martin Kirchhofer whilst the sister #62 car includes Nicki Thiim, Jake Dennis and Mathieu Vaxiviere, each coming with their own individual skill set, racing knowledge but above all - determination to succeed.
R-Motorpsort spent three days testing at Monza after the series official test at Paul Ricard last month whilst Oman Racing have only had a couple of single test days in-between series events, last out at Silverstone in the wet last week.
Track action for these three cars starts Saturday morning with Free Practice before Pre Qualifying in the afternoon before Qualifying itself on Sunday morning ahead of the three hour race itself in the afternoon.
Photo credits - TF Sport / R-Motorsport / BES
