The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT ready to defend Blancpain Sprint titles as 2017 season kicks off at Misano

The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT ready to defend Blancpain Sprint titles as 2017 season kicks off at Misano

29/03/2017

It’s time to start the engines for the world’s GT community. The 2017 season of the Blancpain GT Series kicks off this weekend at Misano Adriatico. The track carrying the name of Marco Simoncelli and located on the shores of the Adriatic Sea is now established as the host venue for the season-opener of the Blancpain Sprint Cup and as per its tradition it will offer a night race on Saturday and one at noon on Sunday. Once again, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT will be one the strongest contenders in both the Sprint and the Endurance Cups. The squad has worked relentlessly during the winter to fine-tune its Audis R8 LMS and reshuffled significantly its driver line-up to keep up with the highest standards and face a competition that is becoming fiercer every year. One of the clear missions for 2017 is to defend the two titles, Drivers’ and Teams’, conquered in 2016 in the Sprint Cup. The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT takes up the challenge fielding a 5-car entry, with reigning champion Enzo Ide as one, but not the only, star!

Never change a winning team, says sporting wisdom, and Enzo Ide and Christopher Mies will continue to team together on the car now sporting the #1. “Winning the title last year was simply terrific”, says the Belgian who beat all professional drivers last year, “and we will try to do it again this year. For me, racing is a sport and not a profession, and even more than that. When I go to racing weekends, it’s like a perfect holiday! I feel no stress and no pressure, I just want to enjoy driving and competing. It may be a little bit different this year, as we have to defend the tile, but I am sure that it still will be a lot of fun and that we will be among the top contenders.”

Car #2 will be entrusted to Will Stevens and stalwart Audi driver Markus Winkelhock, undoubtedly a heavy-weight duo. The former F.1 British driver reckons: “Last year was my first full season with GTs and allowed me to familiarize with cars, races and procedures that are completely different from single-seater racing. I now feel perfectly comfortable and ready to go for it!”.

In car #3, Jake Dennis and Pieter Schothorst will form a brand new duo of young guns. For the 21-year old Brit, who joins from GP3, “it will be key to learn quickly the different way to interact with team and to create the best relationship with everybody”, while the young Dutchman, who raced with the team in 2015, acknowledges: “It is simply great to be back in such a fantastic team, which is first of all a family.”

Car #5 is entrusted to an “extreme” mix of experience and youth. Former WEC Champion and three times Le Mans winner Marcel Fässler, a star that has already been associated with Team WRT in the past, will be paired with rising star Dries Vanthoor, 21 years is junior. The young Belgian showed tremendous pace in his first full GT season last year and is in constant progression. “I have made mistakes last year, for sure, but I think I showed what I am capable of”, reflects Dries, “This year, I’ll try to stay out of trouble and go for something big.” 2017 will also be a sort of emancipation test for Dries: with Laurens Vanthoor promoted to the next ladder in his career, Dries will now be out of the shade of his elder brother: “On one hand, of course, it’s sad not having him around anymore in the team, but on the other, now I won’t be ‘a brother of’, I will be Dries!”

Last but not least, car #17 sees at the wheel a new duo made of drivers who are established members of the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT family, Robin Frijns and Stuart Leonard. The Brit explains: “I am happy to be back for a third year, and determined to get stronger and stronger. Being associated with such a fast driver as Robin can only bring positive things.”

The team has conducted an intensive testing programme in recent weeks, which included a stop in Misano and culminated with the Blancpain collective testing session at Circuit Paul Ricard earlier this month. “Everything went well and these sessions were very useful”, comments Pierre Dieudonné, who will share with Thierry Tassin the duties of sporting director, “The main focus was to do the work we had planned to do, and not care about times and comparisons. We all know that trying to draw conclusions from this kind of tests is a useless exercise. The competition is going to be extremely fierce in any case as soon as real racing starts.”

Summing up the perspectives for 2017 at a team’s presentation held in Brussels a few days ago, Team Principal Vincent Vosse stated: “We are off again to an exciting season, which promises to be even more competitive and closely-fought, if possible. We have done our homework, we come with a largely renewed team, and it will be nice to take the track at Misano with the #1 sticker on one of our cars. Our motivation is always the same, it is something we have in us. We want to take up the challenge and prove to all those who support us that they are right to believe in us…”

Action in Misano will start on Friday with free practice, and qualifying will be on Saturday afternoon. As per tradition in the Italian track near the beach, night racing is in the programme, with the Qualifying Race kicking-off at 20:40 on Saturday, while the Main Race is scheduled under full sunshine on Sunday starting 12:30.

Blancpain Sprint Series - Round 1

Misano Adriatico, Italy

1-2 April 2017

Timetable (all times local = CET)

Friday 31^st March 2017

15:25-16:45 Free Practice 1

19:30-20:50 Free Practice 2

Saturday 1^st April 2017
14:15-15:10 Qualifying 1 – 2 - 3

20:40-21:40 Qualifying Race

Sunday 2^nd April 2017
09:30-09:50 Warm up

12:30-13:30 Main Race

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT entries

#1 Enzo Ide (B) – Christopher Mies (D)

#2 Will Stevens (GB) – Markus Winkelhock (D)

#3 Jake Dennis (GB) – Pieter Schothorst (NL)

#5 Marcel Fässler (CH) - Dries Vanthoor (B)

#17 Robin Frijns (NL) – Stuart Leonard (GB)