By Tarek Ramchani
The beautiful Nogaro circuit in France will play host to the opening round of the 2015 Blancpain Sprint Series. Audi Sport customer racing will be very well represented with no less than seven R8 LMS ultra cars.
Three teams will represent the Ingolstadt brand in the French event. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT will field four Audi R8 LMS ultra cars. The #1 will be shared by 2014 Blancpain GT Series champion Laurens Vanthoor and Robin Frijns. The #2 car will be driven by Christopher Mies and Enzo Ide.The #3 entry will have an all Monaco drive line-up with Stéphane Ortelli and Stéphane Richelmi. The #4 R8 LMS ultra will be driven by James Nash and Frank Stippler.
Phoenix Racing is returning to the SRO organised series with one Audi R8 LMS ultra. The #6 car will be shared by Markus Winkelhock and Niki Mayr-Melnhof.
I.S.R. Racing from the Czech Republic will be in Nogaro with two cars. Thomas Fjordbach and Anders Fjordbach will be behind the wheel of the #74 Audi. Their team-mates Filip Salaquarda and Marco Bonanomi will share the sister #75 R8 LMS ultra.
The Audi teams will face strong teams representing Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Porsche.
Nogaro Coupes de Pâques entry list is here.
Action will start on Saturday with two practice sessions. The qualifying session and the qualifying race will be held on Sunday. The Coupes de Pâques weekend will conclude on Monday with the warm-up followed by the 1-hour main race.
