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      09-02-2014, 10:28 AM   #1
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Blancpain Sprint Series: Algarve (9/7/2014)





http://www.autodromodoalgarve.com/Default.aspx?lng=en

The fifth round of the Blancpain Sprint Series will be held next weekend at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, near the Portuguese town of Portimao. The most recent Sprint Series event, at the Slovakiaring, produced some eventful races, with a surprise result at the end. Everything is set for the Portuguese race to be at least as exciting.

After Main Race wins for Mercedes (Nogaro), Lamborghini (Brands Hatch) and Audi (Zandvoort), the Sunday Race at the Slovakiaring produced the first Blancpain Sprint Series win for BMW. Through two of its Sports Trophy Teams – Team Schubert and Team Brazil – the Bavarian brand scored a 1-2. It was the Austrian pairing of Thomas Jäger and Dominik Baumann, only competing in their second Blancpain Sprint Series event, who claimed the 30.000 euro cheque attributed to the Main Race winner.

However, their rivals have vowed to get revenge as quickly as possible. Leading the driver standings is HTP Motorsport Mercedes-driver Maximilian Götz. Due to the absence of his regular team-mate Maximilian Buhk at the Slovakiaring, Götz is now the only driver in the Series who has scored points in every race of the season. The German is determined to continue that streak under the Portuguese sun.

One of the crews hit by the crash at the start at the Slovakiaring was the Grasser Lamborghini pairing of Hari Proczyk and Jeroen Bleekemolen. The Austrian-Dutch pairing will try hard to make up for that DNF this weekend, since there are only two Blancpain Sprint Series events left after the races at Portimao.

One of the new combinations at the Portuguese track will be the G-Drive duo of Roman Rusinov and Tomas Enge. The squad, absent at the Slovakiaring, has switched from Audi to Lamborghini, in an attempt to repeat their Nogaro performance, when Stéphane Ortelli and Grégory Guilvert finished second in the main race.

Local fans will certainly cheer for the two Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 cars entered by the Sports & You team, as the Italian squad will enter two cars in the Pro-Am Cup for four Portuguese drivers. One will be driven by Paulo Pinheiro and Francisco Mora. The latter celebrated his 18th birthday only last week, which on race day will make him a mere two days older than Pro-Am standings leader Alessandro Latif on his debut in Nogaro in April. The cockpit of the other car will be shared by Antonio Coimbra and Luis Silva who previously shared a car in the Algarve round of the FIA GT3 European Championship in 2009.

The leaders in the Silver Cup, the category exclusively reserved for pairs of young Silver driver aged 25 or under, had a tough weekend in Slovakia. It was the first time that Vincent Abril and Mateusz Lisowski were beaten in both Qualifying and Main Races. On Saturday a rare mistake by Abril on the final lap handed the win to their main rivals in the Series, the Italian pairing of Fumanelli and Colombo. On Sunday, the Silver Cup category was dominated by Series newcomers Lucas Wolf and Luca Stolz. The HTP Motorsport duo is aiming for a repeat performance at Portimao, but Abril and Lisowski are determined to get back to their winning ways as well. Exciting racing guaranteed!

Jeroen Bleekemolen (#28 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini): “The crash at the start of the Slovakiaring Main Race has cost us important points for the championship. It makes me even more determined to do well and make up for that. From now on we should really give it our all, starting at Portimao. I think we shouldn't think about the points anymore and just try to fight harder for race wins. Because that is what we need to win the championship.”

Thomas Jäger (#76 BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert): "For me the track is completely new. But I already familiarized myself with the layout and I´m sure to have enough time during the practice sessions to learn all the details. As far as the set-up of the car is concerned I still benefit very much from the experience of the team and my teammate Dominik. We´ve had a good run so far. That´s why we travel to Portimão in a really good mood."












Here's a recap of the last round at Slovakiaring:












Blancpain Sprint Series Standings so far:

1 Maximilian Gotz (HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS AMG GT3), 85 points
2 Maximilian Buhk (HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS AMG GT3), 69
3 Hari Proczyk / Jeroen Bleekemolen (Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini FLii), 67
4 Caca Bueno / Sergio Jimenez (BMW Sports Trophy Team BMW Z4 Brazil), 51
4 Enzo Ide / Rene Rast (Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra), 51
6 Dominik Baumann / Thomas Jäger (BMW Sport Trophy Team Schubert BMW Z4) 45
7 Cesar Ramos / Laurens Vanthoor (Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra), 36
8 Mateusz Lisowski 8 / Vicent April (Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra), 28
9 Nico Verdonck (HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS AMG GT3), 25
10 Gregory Guilvert / Stephane Ortelli (G-Drive Racing Audi R8 LMS Ultra), 21
10 Sergei Afanasiev / Stef Dusseldorp (HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 21
13 Matheus Stumpf (BMW Sports Trophy Team BMW Z4 Brazil), 14
14 Valdeno Brito (BMW Sports Trophy Team BMW Z4 Brazil), 10
18 Nelson Piquet (BMW Sports Trophy Team BMW Z4 Brazil), 4

Last edited by 954Stealth; 09-04-2014 at 10:02 AM..
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      09-03-2014, 10:28 AM   #2
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As always here is the link for the live feed:
http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/sprint/live

and TV schedule is CBS Sports Network on Sunday @ 2am (Set your DVR).
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      09-04-2014, 09:05 AM   #3
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G-Drive Racing is trading in their Audi R8 lms for a Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 which will be run by Reiter Engineering.

"Other changes include the absence of the Villorba Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, which suffered an accident in Slovakia, while a pair of Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 have been entered for Portuguese squad Sports & You"


Practice in Portimao (Algarve) starts tomorrow!

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      09-04-2014, 09:59 AM   #4
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This is the home race for BMW Sports Trophy Team Brazil; their HQ is in the nearby town of Estoril.


Caca Bueno, BMW Team Brazil Driver
"After Slovakia, where our victory passed so close, we excited to Algarve. Expectation is good, despite not knowing how the BMW Z4 will behave this track does not seem so favorable to our car, like other tracks on the calendar. it's a track that does not know, and perhaps becoming difficult in the beginning of the work. But we had a good and steady progress, with competitive car, especially in the races, and so I believe that we have good conditions to fight again for the podium "

Sergio Jimenez, BMW Team Brazil Driver
"We expect a good race, which has been our forte. But I think we have a difficult classification, being our problem this year. If we can classify further ahead we believe chances of fighting for victory. Never walked in the circuit, but it looks very interesting with strong climbs and descents.'s not very favorable for our car.'s a track with climbs and curves of second gear to be complicated for us. but over the years, we are fighting very well in adversity and the team whole has outdone himself. So, we are confident"

Matheus Stumpf, BMW Team Brazil
"This is our race 'at home.' We are excited because we come from a great performance in the last race, although not so favorable runway, which shows that we have a competitive car and we can get good results. Moreover, we excited because 'beliscamos' a podium in the last step, and if they had not hit our car, in the Main Race, Slovakia, would have great chances to be on the podium as well as another pair, "
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      09-04-2014, 11:44 AM   #5
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Stefan Wendl (Team Manager Schubert Motorsport): "Such a dream start to our involvement in the Blancpain Sprint Series we did not expect the first two races ran great, but we can not assume that things will continue automatically so this is finally no.. playground but a highly professional racing series, in which the competition is very strong. "

"We have to Portimão indeed very good memories, but are quite a while back. So we have to start in terms of set-up of the vehicle virtually zero. This is a major difference from the previous courses, where we only relatively short had been before. "

"We are thus the training time for the tuning of BMW Z4 GT3 should exploit fully and may not like so far concentrate on fine-tuning and the use of new for us Pirelli tires. Correspondingly difficult it will be to be up front again. I would be pleased if we could fight for the podium. "

Dominik Baumann (Team Manager Schubert Motorsport): : "I know the track yet from 2011, it makes a lot of fun We understand the Pirelli tires better and have been very coped well in the race and now we need to see that we do better in qualifying... I'm looking forward to the weekend. "

Thomas Jäger (Team Manager Schubert Motorsport): : "For me, the course is new, but I have made myself in advance with the route familiar and safe in the training enough time to adjust to the Details When set-up of the vehicle I benefit greatly from the experience.. of the team and my teammates Dominik. For us, it's going very well so far. equally positive of course, the atmosphere in the team. "

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      09-05-2014, 08:50 AM   #6
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Zanardi to Compete with Special Livery at Portimao

http://sportscar365.com/blancpain/bs...y-at-portimao/

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      09-05-2014, 08:57 AM   #7
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Enge Leads Lamborghini 1-2 in Opening Practice at Portimao

http://sportscar365.com/blancpain/bs...e-at-portimao/

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      09-05-2014, 10:25 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 954Stealth View Post
Zanardi to Compete with Special Livery at Portimao

http://sportscar365.com/blancpain/bs...y-at-portimao/

Here's more on this:

Gold for the world champion: Special livery for Alessandro Zanardi’s BMW Z4 GT3 at Portimão. Portimão (PT), 4th September 2014.

When Alessandro Zanardi (IT) arrived at the “Autodromo Internacional do Algarve” near Portimão (PT) today, BMW Motorsport and ROAL Motorsport welcomed him with a big surprise: a special golden livery for his BMW Z4 GT3. With this present, they were referring to the successes Zanardi celebrated with his hand-bike last weekend at the 2014 UCI Paracycling World Championships at Greenville (US). The BMW works driver won two world-titles (time trial and team relay) and one silver medal (road-race). The livery features a gold-coloured bonnet and roof, stylised pictures of Zanardi riding his hand-cycle on the doors and his medal winning times. The Italian will race his BMW Z4 GT3 with this livery this weekend (5th to 7th September), when he contests the fifth round of the 2014 Blancpain Sprint Series at the Portimã circuit.

“I am really touched that all the boys and BMW Motorsport in Munich did this for me. I am speechless, which is definitely unusual for Alex Zanardi. I am so impressed because this is such a great gesture. Now I cannot wait to jump into my BMW Z4 GT3 tomorrow,” Zanardi said after the team had presented him the specially livered car, adding with a twinkle in his eye: “But it could be that I drive very carefully this weekend because I don’t want to damage this beautiful baby.

Press contact:
Jörg Kottmeier, Phone.: +49 (0) 170 566 6112, joerg.kottmeier@bmw.de
Danilo Coglianese, Phone: +49 (0) 176 601 72405, danilo.coglianese@bmw.de
Ingo Lehbrink, Phone: +49 (0) 176 203 40224, ingo.lehbrink@bmw.de










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