DSC is checking in with 18-year-old Londoner Alessandro Latif after each round of the Blancpain Sprint Series to get an insight into his first full season of GT racing, sharing the #5 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 with 2012 GT1 World Champion Marc Basseng.
At the series’ most recent event in Zandvoort last weekend (July 6-7), the pair finished 10th and 13th respectively in Qualifying and Championship races, second in the Pro-Am class each time.
But is so often the case in motorsport, the results sheet only tells half the story. Every driver except for the winner will emerge from his or her car rueing a missed opportunity, mechanical failure or other stroke of bad luck that prevented them from showing their full potential on the day. In Latif’s case an errant rival and unpredictable weather conspired against him and Basseng to prevent them recording a season-best finish of sixth overall.
Latif had come in to the weekend full of confidence – Zandvoort being the only track in the seven-round Blancpain Sprint Series calendar that he had previously tested. “It’s a very odd track compared to modern circuits, very unforgiving,” he says, “so it was good to be more prepared here than at the other rounds.”
Friday’s two free practice sessions were held in very hot and humid conditions, and with limited sets of new tyres available for qualifying and the race Latif and Basseng were running on used rubber that they’d raced on at the Brands Hatch round. “It’s hard to tell how well it went because the tyres are so shot,” Latif explained afterwards. “There wasn’t much setup work to do, it was good just to get a few sighting laps in.”
Slightly cooler conditions prevailed on Saturday morning for qualifying, and poleman Jeroen Bleekemolen stunned the field with an incredibly quick lap in the final part of the session. Basseng, meanwhile, qualified the #5 car ninth overall out of 20 runners for the afternoon’s qualifying race. The German veteran handed the car to Latif in ninth. Like the rest of the field, he exited the pits on wet tyres, as a heavy downpour had hit the track just before the pit window opened.
It proved to be an excellent stint for the young Brit. “We were one of the quickest cars out there and I was up to sixth place before the second safety car came out,” he said. “But on the restart, the #30 BMW just decided to spin me around completely at the exit of the hairpin, which was totally unecessary – two corners later, he spun around on his own. It’s very frustrating – sixth would have been our best result of the season and we were running faster than some cars up ahead, too.”
Unfortunately, Latif’s luck didn’t improve in Sunday’s Championship Race, which was also hit by rain. After a solid first stint, he handed the #5 Audi to Basseng in 12th position overall. Later in the stint, Basseng took a gamble on changing to wets when rain started to fall, but it didn’t persist and the German soon found himself on the wrong tyres for a drying track.
“We thought the rain would last longer and that changing to wets would put us in contention for a top result,” reflected a disappointed Latif afterwards. “But unfortunately we guessed wrong – the track dried fast and Marc was unable to stay with the cars on slick tyres.”
Latif’s next Blancpain Sprint Series stop is the Slovakiaring on 22-24 August.
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