By Tarek Ramchani
The 2012 Blancpain Endurance Series season has started. The opening round is at Monza, Italy with no less than six Audi R8 LMS race cars on the entry list.
Leading the Audi squad is of course is the Belgian Audi Club WRT. The 2011 series champions are back in the top Pro-Cup class with a pair of Audi R8 LMS ultras and a very strong driver line-up. For the qualifying session the best ranked Audi ended in seventh overall, the #1 car of Christopher Mies, Christopher Haase and Stephane Ortelli. The sister #2 car of Marco Bonanomi, Laurens Vanthoor and Edward Sandstrom is far behind landing in 43rd place out of 56 cars. Pole position went to the #71 Ferrari 458 Italia from Kessel Racing, just followed by the #8 Porsche GT3 R from the Haribo Racing Team.
The other Audi cars are in both the Pro-Am class and the Gentlemen Trophy classes. The #30 Audi of the new comers “GT3 Racing” did a nice job with 27th place for their debut with the R8 LMS. The #98 Swedish run car from JB Motorsport was 33rd, while both Sainteloc Racing cars are grouped together with the #40 Audi which will start from 39th position and the sister #41 a further spot back in 40th position.
The race is a 3 hour event, exclusively open for GT3 spec cars. The Belgian Audi Club did dominate last weekend’s FIA GT1 World Championship round in France, but the team will face a larger entry list in Italy, mainly in the Pro-Cup class. With very well driven R8 LMS ultra cars, WRT will be among the big favorites for the overall win tomorrow. The same goes for the other Audi teams in both the Pro-Am and Gentlemen Trophy classes.
Photo Credits : Markus Berns Blancpain Endurance Series
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| #40 Audi R8 LMS - Sainteloc Racing |
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| #98 Audi R8 LMS - JB Motorsport |
