2016 Blancpain GT Series season starts - be ready for the traffic jam!

The new season of Blancpain GT Series kicks-off this weekend with a Sprint Cup race at Misano World Circuit.

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT, led by reigning overall champion Robin Frijns enters the new season with six cars on the grid and with some well-known names behind the wheels of Audi R8 LMS’. The same car will be a trump card of Phoenix Racing who fields two Audis while the Teams’ runners-up from last year, Bentley Team will defend their crown in the Sprint Cup Drivers’ championship, but with slightly changed drivers line-up.

Growing competition

After the previous season, the ambition of the founder and competition’s CEO Stephane Ratel was to have 25 cars on the starting grid for the 2016 campaign, but that number is greatly exceeded as for the event in Italy we will see no lest than 40 cars battling for space at the relatively tight track.

Some teams didn’t yet completed their driver line-ups for the coming season, mainly the ones for the Endurance Cup, but it is expected they will announce the names in the next couple of weeks.

The season of 2016 consists 10 rounds – five Endurance and five Sprint Cup races. At the end of the season, champions will be announced in both categories, as well in the overall classification.

2016 Blancpain GT Series schedule

April 10 – Misano World Circuit (Sprint Cup)
April 24 – Autodromo Nazionale Monza (Endurance Cup)
May 8 – Brands Hatch (Sprint Cup)
May 15 – Silverstone (Endurance Cup)
June 25 – Circuit Paul Ricard (Endurance Cup)
July 3 – Nurburgring (Sprint Cup)
July 30 – Spa-Francorchamps (Endurance Cup)
August 28 – Hungaroring (Sprint Cup)
September 18 – Nurburgring (Endurance Cup)
October 2 – Circuit de Catalunya (Sprint Cup)

2016 Blancpain GT Series full entry list

AF Corse (Ferrari 488 GT3)

#49 – Garry Kondakov, Alexandar Moiseev, Riccardo Ragazzi (Endurance Cup)
#51 – Francisco Guedes, Peter Mann, Rino Mastronardi (Endurance Cup)
#52 – Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin (Endurance Cup)
#53 – Lorenzo Bontempelli, Giancarlo Fisichella, Motoaki Ishikawa (Endurance Cup)
#54 – Pasin Lathouras, Alessandro PierGuidi, Michele Rugolo (Endurance Cup)
#55 – Stephane Lemeret, Claudio Sdanewitsch (Sprint Cup)
#90 – Raffaelle Gianmaria, Ezequiel Perez Companc (Sprint Cup)
#90 – Alessandro Balzan, Raffaelle Gianmaria, Ezequiel Perez Companc (Endurance Cup)

AF2 Motorsport (Lamborghini Rex)

#32 – Victor Correa, Emmanuel Toulisse (Endurance Cup)

AKKA ASP Team (Mercedes-AMG GT3)

#87 – Jean-Luc Beaubelique, Maurice Ricci, Gilles Vannelet (Endurance Cup)
#87 – Jean-Luc Beaubelique, Morgan Moullin Traffort (Sprint Cup)
#88 – Felix Rosenqvist, Tristan Vautier (Sprint Cup)
#89 – Jean-Philippe Belloc, Christophe Bourret (Sprint Cup)

ARC Bratislava (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

#69 – Miro Konopka, Andrzej Lewandowski, Teodor Myszkowski (Endurance Cup)

Attempto Racing (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

#77 – Jack Falla, Davide Valsecchi (Sprint Cup)
#100 – Louis Machiels, Jeroen Mul, Max van Splunteren (Endurance Cup)
#100 – Jeroen Mul, Max van Splunteren (Sprint Cup)
#101 – Fabio Babini, Patric Niederhauser, Daniel Zampieri (Endurance Cup)
#101 – Patric Niederhauser, Daniel Zampieri (Sprint Cup)

Attempto Racing (Porsche 911 GT3 R)

#77 – Jurgen Haring (Endurance Cup)

Barwell Motorsport (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

#78 – Marco Attard, Leo Machitski, Marco Mapelli (Endurance Cup)
#666 – Richard Abra, Joe Osborne, Mark Poole (Endurance Cup)

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT (Audi R8 LMS)

#1 – Laurens Vanthoor, Dries Vanthoor, Frederic Vervisch (Endurance Cup)
#1 – Laurens Vanthoor, Frederic Vervisch (Sprint Cup)
#2 – Robin Frijns, Stuart Leonard, Michael Meadows (Endurance Cup)
#2 – Stuart Leonard, Michael Meadows (Sprint Cup)
#3 – Filipe Albuquerque, Rodrigo Baptista, Sergio Jimenez (Endurance Cup)
#3 – Filipe Albuquerque, Rodrigo Baptista (Sprint Cup)
#4 – Adrien de Leener, Pierre Kaffer, Peter Kox (Endurance Cup)
#4 – Robin Frijns, Dries Vanthoor (Sprint Cup)
#28 – Will Stevens (Endurance Cup)
#28 – Rene Rast, Will Stevens (Sprint Cup)
#33 – Enzo Ide, Christopher Mies (Sprint Cup)

Bentley M-Sport (Bentley Continental GT3)

#7 – Vincent Abril, Steven Kane, Guy Smith (Endurance Cup)
#7 – Vincent Abril, Steven Kane (Sprint Cup)
#8 – Andy Soucek, Maxime Soulet (Endurance Cup)
#8 – Andy Soucek, Maxime Soulet (Sprint Cup)

Black Falcon (Mercedes-AMG GT3)

#56 – Adam Christodoulou, Hubert Haupt, Andreas Simonsen (Endurance Cup)
#57 – Maro Engel, Oliver Morley, Miguel Toril (Endurance Cup)

Black Pearl Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia GT3)

#66 – Daniel Keilwitz, Alexander, Mattschull, Steve Parrow (Endurance Cup)
#66 – Christian Hook, Steve Parrow (Sprint Cup)

BMW Team Italia (BMW M6 GT3)

#15 – Stefano Colombo, Max Koebolt, Giorgio Roda (Endurance Cup)

Boutsen Ginion Racing (BMW M6 GT3)

#12 – Julian Darras, Olivier Grotz, Karim A. Ojjeh (Endurance Cup)
#12 – Maxime Martin (Sprint Cup)

Classic & Modern Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia GT3)

TBA

Emil Frey Racing (Jaguar G3)

#14 – Lorenz Frey (Endurance Cup)

Garage 59 (McLaren 650S GT3)

#58 – Rob Bell, Come Ledogar, Shane van Gisbergen (Endurance Cup)
#58 – Rob Bell, Alvaro Parente (Sprint Cup)
#59 – Alex Fontana, Struan Moore, Andrew Watson (Endurance Cup)

GRT Grasser Racing Team (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

#16 – Jeroen Bleekemolen, Stefan Rosina (Sprint Cup)
#16 – Vadim Gitlin (Endurance Cup)
#19 – Michele Beretta, Andrea Piccini, Luca Stolz (Endurance Cup)
#19 – Michele Beretta, Luca Stolz (Sprint Cup)
#63 – Jeroen Bleekemolen, Mirko Bortolotti, Rolf Ineichen (Endurance Cup)
#63 – Mirko Bortolotti, Nicolas Pohler (Sprint Cup)

HTP Motorsport (Mercedes-AMG GT3)

#84 – Dominik Baumann, Maximilian Buhk (Sprint Cup)
#85 – Jazeman Jafaar, Clemens Schmid (Sprint Cup)
#86 – Bernd Schneider, Jules Szymkowiak (Sprint Cup)

IMSA Performance (Porsche 911 GT3 R)

#76 – Thierry Cornac, Maxime Jousse, Raymond Narac (Endurance Cup)

ISR Racing (Audi R8 LMS)

#74 – Franck Perera, Marion Stockinger (Sprint Cup)
#75 – Filip Salaquarda, Frank Stippler (Endurance Cup)
#75 – Filip Salaquarda, Frank Stippler (Sprint Cup)

Kessel Racing (Ferrari 488 GT3)

#11 – Alessandro Bonacini, Michael Broniszewski, Andrea Rizzoli (Endurance Cup)
#11 – Michael Broniszewski, Giacomo Piccini (Sprint Cup)
#111 – Bernard Delhez, Stephen Earie, David Perel (Endurance Cup)
#888 – Liam Talbot, Marco Zanuttini (Endurance Cup)

Konrad Motorsport (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

TBA

Nissan GT Academy Team RJN (Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3)

#22 – Romain Sarazin, Matthew Simmons, Sean Walkinshaw (Endurance Cup)
#22 – Ricardo Sanchez, Sean Walkinshaw (Sprint Cup)
#23 – Alex Buncombe, Lucas Ordonez, Mitsunori Takaboshi (Endurance Cup)
#23 – Alex Buncombe, Mitsunori Takaboshi (Sprint Cup)

Oman Racing Team (Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3)

#44 – Jonathan Adam, Ahmad Al Harthy, Devon Modell (Endurance Cup)

Ombra Racing (Lamborghini Huracan GT3)

TBA

Phoenix Racing (Audi R8 LMS)

#5 – Markus Winkelhock (Endurance Cup)
#5 – Niki Mayr-Meinhof, Markus Winkelhock (Sprint Cup)
#6 – Nicolaj Moller Madsen, Markus Pommer (Sprint Cup)

Rinaldi Racing (Ferrari 458 Italia GT3)

#333 – Rinat Salikhov, Marco Seefried, Norbert Siedler (Endurance Cup)
#333 – Marco Seefrid, Norbert Siedler (Sprint Cup)
#488 – Pierre Ehret, Tim Muller, Stef Vancampenhoudt (Endurance Cup)

ROWE Racing (BMW M6 GT3)

#98 – Stef Dusseldorp (Endurance Cup)
#98 – Nick Catsburg, Stef Dusseldorp (Sprint Cup)
#99 – Philipp Eng, Alexander Sims (Endurance Cup)
#99 – Philipp Eng, Alexander Sims (Sprint Cup)

Sainteloc Racing (Audi R8 LMS)

#25 – Gregory Guilvert, Christopher Haase (Endurance Cup)
#25 – Christopher Haase, Mike Parisy (Sprint Cup)
#26 – Romain Monti (Sprint Cup)

Team a-workx (Porsche 911 GT3 R)

#36 – Sebastian Asch, Dietmar Ulrich (Sprint Cup)

Team Parker Racing (Bentley Continental GT3)

#24 – Ian Loggie, Callum Macleod, Tom Onslow-Cole (Endurance Cup)
#30 – Derek Pierce (Endurance Cup)

Zakspeed (Mercedes-AMG GT3)

#91 – Jean-Frederic Laberge, Darryl O’Young, Alex Tagliani (Endurance Cup)

Photo: blancpain-gt-series.com