Strong GT3 start

Commanding performance

Vervisch and Vanthoor win for Audi in Italy.

The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT has taken up in 2016 where it left off last year – on the top of the podium – taking first blood in this year’s Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup over the weekend.

Driving at the Misano World Circuit in Italy, the Audi pairing of Frédéric Vervisch and Laurens Vanthoor drove a perfect race, proving to be the best of a very strong contingent of Audi drivers contesting the championship this year.

Not only was it an outstanding performance by Vervisch and Vanthoor, but the team in the pits provided their customary excellent back-up to help the drivers to take the meeting ahead of nearest rivals from Mercedes.

Starting from third place on the grid, Vervisch took the first driving stint to move into the lead on lap 11. From there it was only a matter of consolidating the position before handing over the driving duties to Laurens Vanthoor at the halfway mark and leave him to take it home.

Not only was it the perfect start for the R8 LMS to the 2016 season, but for Vanthoor who crashed heavily on this same track last year.

“I haven’t thought that much about what happened here last year, but the memories definitely came flooding back up there on the podium. So it was good to put that to bed,” Laurens said after the race.

“The levels of teams and drivers is so high in the championship so I think we can be really proud of the result. Everyone’s done a great job – the mechanics were even better than us, and we did what we had to do.”

The next round of the Blancpain GT Series will see the GT3 cars head to England’s Brand Hatch at the start of next month.