By Tarek Ramchani
Silverstone played host to a great second round of the Blancpain Endurance Series today. The Audi teams performed well with a podium finish and two cars within the Top 4.
After a thrilling 3-hour endurance race the #1 Audi R8 LMS ultra from Belgian Audi Club Team WRT took a great third place. The car shared by Laurens Vanthoor, Cesar Ramos and Marc Basseng battled very well and was able to improve. The three drivers started from the ninth place on the grid and bounced back with some great overtaking and a good strategy. The WRT run Audi took a place on the podium in the very last lap passing another Audi.
Audi factory driver Laurens Vanthoor overtook the #26 R8 LMS ultra from Sainteloc Racing in the closing stages of the race. The French Audi was driven by Stéphane Ortelli, Gregory Guilvert and Edward Sandström. After the second place in round 1 at Monza, Sainteloc Racing again proving they are among the best in the upper Pro-Cup field.
The two Audis finished behind the winning factory #7 Bentley Continental GT from M-Sport Team Bentley and the second placed McLaren MP4-12C from ART Grand Prix.
Belgian Audi Club Team WRT placed another R8 LMS ultra into the Top 10. The #3 car driven by Christopher Mies, Frank Stippler and James Nash ended in ninth place after some bad luck.
The other Audi R8 LMS ultra cars finished the race respectively in twenty-first with #55 Brothers Racing Team (Pro-Cup), thirtieth with #22 Team Parker Racing and third within the Gentlemen Trophy, fortieth with #4 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT (Gentlemen Trophy) and forty-first with #25 Sainteloc Racing (Gentlemen Trophy).
Overall it was a good weekend for the Audi Sport customer racing squad at Silverstone with solid performances. The next stop for the Blancpain Endurance Series will be in France at the Paul Ricard circuit, June 27th-28th.
Photo gallery: Blancpain GT Series
