It’s a first time to the Red Bull Ring for the DSC Editor and what a splendid place it is.
Firstly Austria is just beautiful and the setting for the track perfectly complements the topography.
The weather today is glorious with the weekend set to be a scorcher, more than 30 degrees on Sunday.
Also, glory be! we have an actual view of the track from the (excellent) press room with more than half of the circuit, plus the whole pit lane, easily visible.
It’s truly astounding what a sickly sweet fizzy drink can buy but in a cynicism-free moment I’m very glad that this is the way that part of the profits are being spent!
Back to the business of this weekend and after a month’s gap from Le Mans the paddock is raring to go.
There is an impressive support package for the ELMS this weekend with Formula Renault 3.5 and the new for 2015 TCR Touring Car Series in attendance.
There are familiar faces in evidence in both with the Strakka Racing and SMP Racing teams in the single seater paddock, ex Prospeed WEC man Matthieu Vaxivierre on the grid and a face from the (recent) past, Jean Denis Deletraz looking after the racing of his son Louis.
In TCR Andrea Belicchi is flying high alongside established touring car stars including Jordi Gene and Gianni Morbidelli. Craft Bamboo are contesting TCR alongside their parallel WTCC and GT Asia programmes too.
Onto the main event and there are a few chops and changes to report in the ELMS paddock.
We’ve already reported the arrival of the Algarve Pro Racing Ligier Nissan to round out a dozen LMP2s for the weekend.
There are no other changes to the established order with several teams, including Jota, Pegasus, Greaves and Murphy returning to their full season ELMS squads after shuffling the pack for Le Mans.
Murphy’s Mark Patterson, seen here with the always quiet and withdrawn Greg Murphy was attempting to lay down a marker for fellow racer Sir Chris Hoy – “I managed three laps of the circuit on my bike to his one, I think I broke his resolve!” In fairness that’s very much less than likely Mark!
One planned change here is the arrival for a one-off run for Krohn Racing, of Julien Canal, Ozz Negri is busy on TUSCC duty this weekend.
The ripples from ysterday’s 2017 LMP2 chassis constructor announcement is very present across the paddock. There is no doubt more to come this weekend on that subject.
LMP3 meanwhile sees just four cars, again all Ginetta Nissans with Team LNT borrowing the University of Bolton/ Team RLR car that won last time out. The Blue car will race as LNT’s #2 car for Nismo Athletes Gaetan Paletou and Mark Shulzitskiy.
GTE sees Richard Lietz back with Proton Competition and Christian Ried but the Imola podium finishers are joined this weekend by Sebastien Asch, the team now back in possession of the Porsche 911 RSR that raced at Le Mans in the hands of Team AAI as the #68 car.
It features a handsome new livery for the weekend with backing from Remus Exhausts.
Gulf Racing field ‘super sub’ Dan Brown for Phil Keen, absent on British GT duty this weekend, Brown drove in the team’s GT class Lamborghini at the opening round of the season.
Several of the GTE runners too return to their ELMS full season line-ups after Le Mans including the #55 and #66 Ferraris of JMW and AF Corse respectively.
GG
