The Blancpain Endurance Series stepped up in the wake of the failure of the FIA GT1 World Championship as the blue riband package on SRO’s menu with three, three hour races, the Spa 24 Hours and the new for 2013 Blancpain 1000kms at the Nurburgring to round off the season, and, as it would turn out, to decide the titles too.
And in 2013 the racing didn’t let down that billing one little bit!
The three classes. all racing GT3 machinery presented packed and varied grids throughout the 5 race calendar with healthy turn-outs for the Pro Cup, Pro-Am and Gentleman’s Trophy competitions.
Pro-Cup
Before the Spa 24 Hours you’d have been a brave punter to have bet on Maximillian Buhk to take the driver’s title, Just ten points were on the board from the first three rounds.
Spa though turned the season around and with maximum points taken there the opposition were left to chase, but the Mercedes man and co prevailed again in Germany and secured the Drivers Championship for Buhk, both of whose team-mates had missed a round earlier in the season.
They (Schneider and Gotz), shared second slot with Marc VDS boys Maxime Martin, Bas Leinders and Yelmer Buurman, the Belgian-based BMW boys though would take at least some comfort from securing the teams title from WRT’s Audis, Kessel Racing’s Ferraris and the JRM Nissan GTR.
Pro-Am
Another one that went down to the wire and it was Nissan’s original GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez that took the honours after a stunning season’s effort, he eventually edged out the potent Russian cocktail of MP Racing’s Kirill Ladygin and Viktor Shaitar with another GT Academy graduate, Peter Pyzera coming home third in the running, just four points separating these four!
There was good news too for Nissan GT Academy Team RJN in the teams standings too as their Nissan GTR prevailed ahead of very strong opposition, the Ferraris of AF Corse and SMP Racing trailing the Nissan home n the points standings.
Gentlemans Trophy
This contest was bossed throughput by the handy combination of the ‘Jean-Lucs’ Beaubelique and Blanchemain and Patrice Gouselard, the SOFREV ASP Ferrari trio far outscoring their closest rivals and the team too taking home the silverware ahead of Sport Garage and Kessel.
