By Tarek Ramchani
A kind of déja vu for the Audi teams in the Blancpain Sprint Series main race at Brands Hatch. The Audi R8 LMS ultra cars had a mixed race and never been able to challenge for the victory.
After an unlucky qualifying race earlier this morning the Audi teams knew from the start that race win would be a difficult target.
Belgian Audi Club Team WRT was able to place all their three cars inside the Top 10. The #1 Audi driven by Laurens Vanthoor and César Ramos finished fourth. The #4 Audi in the hands of Vincent Abril and Mateusz Lisowsk finished in a solid sixth place, a great performance from a car competing in the Silver Cup. The #2 Audi of René Rast and Enzo Ide was ninth. In the closing stages René Rast battled for eighth position with a BMW Z4 GT3 but it was too late as time run out.
Hard race for the two Phoenix Racing Audis. The #5 R8 LMS ultra of Marc Basseng and Alessandro Latif was eleventh. The sister #6 car of Markus Winkelhock and Niki Mayr-Melnhof did not finish the race and was forced to retire on lap 14.
The G-Drive Racing Audi too was unlucky. The #3 car managed by WRT and driven by Stéphane Ortelli and Roman Rusinov ended in thirteenth position.
A déja vu in the Top 3 as well. As was the case in the qualifying race, the main race had the very same trio of leaders. Race win went to the #28 Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 from Grasser Racing Team. Second the #84 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 from HTP Motorsport. Third the #0 BMW Z4 GT3 from BMW Team Brazil.
Next stop for the Blancpain Sprint Series will be in the Netherlands with the popular Zandvoort Masters, July 4th-6th.
Photo credit: W Racing Team / Patrick Hecq Photography
