2015 Blancpain Sprint Series - Nogaro
The most interesting GT series in the world, the Blancpain GT series has just started with action packed event held on Nogaro circuit in southwestern France. In the last few years, the Blancpain GT series is synonyms with the worlds fastest GT3 spec. cars and fantastic racing action. Judging by the first race, the season is going to be very dynamic.
The Blancpain GT series is divided into two types of racing. The Blancpain Sprint Series is championship which features shorter, sprint type races on smaller tracks and Blancpain Endurance series is classic endurance championship with longer races on the worlds top tracks. However, most of the teams and drivers participate in both series over one season. The season opener is always a Sprint race, so 19 drivers gathered in one place, on Nogaro circuit on Easter weekend and had a interesting racing event in great weather and great atmosphere.
At first glance, it looked that Audi would be dominant this weekend since it was fastest on both free practice sessions, two of qualifying sessions and on qualifying race and warm up laps before the main race. The Audi R8 LMS Ultra by Belgian Audi Club Team WRT were fastest in almost every category during the weekend. The only time that Audi wasn’t on the top spot was during the second qualifying session when the Bentley Continental GT3 (Bentley Team HTP) was on first place. Audi drivers Robin Frijns and Laurens Vanthoor were fastest on practice but Stephane Richelmi and Stephane Ortelli were better during qualifying sessions.
However, the main race, held on Monday was the biggest surprise when the BMW Z4 GT3 entered by BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil and driven by Maxime Martin and Dirk Müller won the 2015 Blancpain Sprint series Nogaro Coupes de Pâques race in front of two Audis R8 LMS Ultra and Bentley Continental GT3 on fourth place. The BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil always was a very perspective outfit with very fast and agile Z4 GT3 but they never won any major event and 2015 Nogaro race was their fist victory. But the race was not all that smooth for BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil because during the driver change in the middle of the race, the team lost 7 seconds in the pits and lost their lead. However, experienced Dirk Müller got back on the track and gain the lead again and claim the very first and very important BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil in Blancpain GT championship.
