Good morning from the Circuit Paul Ricard for two days of pre-season testing for the Blancpain Endurance Series. The weather is mild and bright.
Yesterday saw the Balance of Performance test, with several new and revised cars under scrutiny including the new 2015 Audi R8 LMS, Lamborghini Huracan, 2015-spec Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, McLaren 650S GT3 and the Ginetta G55 GT3 – the Yorkshire company’s race truck leaving the circuit as we arrived.
There’s plenty of track action today and tomorrow, with two sessions on each day and the season-launch press conference with Stephane Ratel tomorrow afternoon – after which, we believe, the media are to be invited to tour SRO’s recently established technical centre, sited in the Mistral complex here at Paul Ricard.
There are 45 cars listed to be here at the test, with the odd BoP test straggler still at the circuit, too.
There are some interesting names for us to follow up today, with Von Ryan Racing listing Adrian Quaife-Hobbs alongside McLaren GT factory drivers Bruno Senna, Kevin Estre and Alvaro Parente in a McLaren 650S GT3 – the GP3 and GP2 race winner not so far announced with a GT programme.
Reiter Engineering list Peter Kox, Bernhard Muller and Tomas Enge in both a Lamborghini and a Sareni Camaro here.
The full official test day entry is:
1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra
2 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra
3 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra (Laurens Vanthoor)
6 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS Ultra (Markus Winkelhock/Shaun Thon/Lee Ying Kin)
7 Bentley Team M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 (Steven Kane/Guy Smith/Andy Meyrick)
8 Bentley Team M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 (Maximilian Buhk/Andy Soucek)
10 Akka ASP Ferrari 458 Italia (Jean-Philippe Belloc/Christophe Bourret)
11 Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia (Michael Broniszewski)
12 TDS Racing BMW Z4 (Eric Dermont/Henry Hassid/Franck Perera)
14 MRS GT Racing Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 (Sean Walkinshaw/Craig Dolby)
15 Boutsen Ginion BMW Z4 (Karim Ojjeh/Olivier Grotz)
16 Akka ASP Ferrari 458 Italia (Anthony Pons/Fabien Barthez)
17 Insightracing Denmark Ferrari 458 Italia (Dennis Andersen/Martin Jensen)
19 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan (Mirko Bortolotti/Adrian Zaugg)
20 Akka ASP Ferrari 458 Italia (Jean-Luc Beaubelique/Philippe Giauque)
22 Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (Alex Buncombe/Wolfgang Reip)
23 Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 (Gaetan Paletou/Ricardo Sanchez)
24 Team Parker Racing Audi R8 LMS Ultra (Ian Loggie/Julian Westwood)
25 Glorax Racing Ferrari 458 Italia (Rino Mastronardi/Andrey Birzhin)
28 Attempto Racing Porsche 997 GT3 R
30 Classic & Modern Racing BMW Z4 (Christian Kelders/Pierre Hirschi/J-L Blanchemain)
32 Leonard M’sport Aston Vantage GT3 (Stuart Leonard/Paul Wilson/ Michael Meadows)
41 Sport Garage Ferrari 458 Italia (Arno Santamato)
44 Oman Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Ahmad Al-Harthy/Daniel Lloyd)
49 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia (Martin Lanting/Patryck van Glabeke)
50 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia (Alexander Moiseev/Garry Kondakov)
51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia (Duncan Cameron/Matt Griffin)
58 Von Ryan McLaren 650S (Bruno Senna/Kevin Estre/Alvaro Parente/Adrian Quaife-Hobbs)
70 GT Russian Team RUS Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 (Marco Asmer/Bernd Schneider)
71 GT Russian Team RUS Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 (Alexei Vasiliev/Bernd Schneider)
73 Emil Frey Racing Jaguar G3 Emil Frey (Fredy Barth)
74 ISR Audi R8 LMS Ultra (Andres Fjordbach/Thomas Fjordbach)
75 ISR Audi R8 LMS Ultra (Filip Salaquarda/Marco Bonanomi)
79 Ecurie Ecosse/Team Russia BMW Z4 (Alasdair McCaig/Oliver Bryant/Devon Modell)
84 Bentley Team HTP Bentley Continental GT3 (Mike Parisy/Harold Primat/Vincet Abril
88 Reiter Engineering Lamborghini (Peter Kox/Bernhard Müller/Tomas Enge)
89 Reiter Engineering Camaro (Peter Kox/Bernhard Müller/Tomas Enge)
90 Scuderia Villorba Corse Ferrari 458 Italia (Cedric Mezard/Steeve Hiesse)
91 Reiter Engineering Lamborghini (Ronald Hölling/Harold Proczyk)
92 DKR Engineering BMW Z4 (Nick Catsburg)
100 Dragon Speed USA Ferrari 458 Italia (Henri Hedman/Elton Julian)
111 Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia (Stephen Earle)
128 Delahaye Racing Porsche 997 GT3 R
333 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 458 Italia (Marco Seefried/Rinat Salikhov)
888 Triple Eight Racing BMW Z4 (Lee Mowle/Joe Osborne/Ryan Ratcliffe)
