Blancpain GT rolls into Brands Hatch for double series competition
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Brands Hatch will be the place to be at this weekend if it is quantity of Aston Martin Racing cars that you are after with the GT4 European Series racing holding their second event of the year as the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe only starts theirs.
With all being well, that equates to about nine AMR Vantage race cars being at the Kent circuit in both GT3 and GT4 form as teams like R-Motorsport, Academy, Street Art Racing, PROsport Performance and Generation AMR SuperRacing go abut their business in the SRO sanction series.
Having morphed from the former Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup, this World Challenge Europe opener will feature a grid of 26 cars with two new generation Vantage GT3's being entered by the Swiss based R-Motorsport team with help from their Jota and Arden Partners. Using the cars that the team also race in the main Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, only one driver in Marvin Krchhofer makes the jump with the team from the Endurance Cup leaving new drivers Hugo de Sadeleer, Aaro Vainio and Ricky Collard to make their series debut with the team around the full 3.9km Grand Prix circuit.
Vainio and de Sadeleer will compete aboard the #62 car in the Silver Cup class whilst the young Collard and Kirchhofer go for glory in the Pro class aboard the #76 car.
With two Free Practice sessions and Qualifying taking place on Saturday, both one hour races will takes place either side of lunch on Sunday.
Joining the two AMR Vantage GT3's will be the seven AMR Vantage GT4's that are contesting the 2019 GT4 European Series for their second event of the season after their two race opener at Monza earlier this month.
Six of these cars will be the new 2019 version as raced by Belgium team Street Art Racing, German based PROsport Performance and UK based Academy Motorsport. The remainder will be the 2016 specification car from Generation AMR SuperRacing that will again race in the INV class due to its non homologated status - we believe that this will be the last time that drivers Matt George and James Holder will race this car before later acquiring one of the new 2019 models for the third round of the series.
PROsport Performance will have had a busy time repairing and maintaining their two cars after have them race at the opening round of the German ADAC GT4 Series last weekend from Oschersleben - an event where their #18 car sustained serious front end damage in the opening laps of race 1 when a tyre failed at a critical moment. Fortunately the driver Florian Thoma, who is also due to race at Brands Hatch, was not seriously injured although the car was unable to contest the second race of that event.
Also, we hope that the #7 Street Art Racing car has also been successfully repaired after its sizeable collision at the opening round at Monza when it was collected by an out of control KTM X Bow going into the first chicane after the pit stop. For the teams other car, Monza was very productive having scooped two podiums in the Am Class for drivers Clement Seyler and Pascal Bachmann.
That leaves the two new Vantage GT4's of Worcester based Academy Motorsport who will rock up to their 'home' circuit of Brands Hatch in confidence after two good opening rounds in Italy. A few repairs have been needed to the #62 Will Moore/Matt Cowley car after Moore experienced a dramatic off in the second race of the opening round of the British GT Championship two weeks ago but thankfully hitting a tyre wall at Oulton Park, the damage shouldn't have been too severe. Their sister #61 car of Tom Wood and Fiona James also enjoyed two good opening races despite the treacherous conditions which leaves then in P10 in the Pro Am table.
There is still very much everything to race for!!
The schedule for Brands Hatch is available HERE
Photo credits - GT4 European / Blancpain