For its third round of the season, the International GT Open is heading to Spa-Francorchamps.
The Spa round will have an unusual format, the usual two races will be replaced by a single race of 2 hours 20 minutes (+ 1 lap) on Sunday, the International GT Open will go into an ‘endurance’ mode, something that is not completely new, as the series had a double-length race (at the season-closer in Barcelona) in its two first editions, in 2006-07.
Jesús Pareja, CEO of GT Sport: “GT and endurance are two concepts closely associated and we thought it interesting to retrieve the tradition of having one endurance round in our calendar. Teams and drivers liked the idea when we exposed it to them and a big and beautiful track like Spa is the perfect choice to have such a race. We all look forward to it!”
The round will have two qualifying sessions, as usual, with each of the two drivers contesting one session. The starting grid will be determined by the average lap time of every car that will result from the best lap time of each of its two drivers;
In the race, each driver will have to perform two stints but no double stints will be allowed. Therefore, there will be three mandatory pit stops, with the relevant handicap to be served in the second pit stop;
This endurance race will award double points (overall and class) based on the final result.
This also means that this race will potentially have an important role in the fight for the championship. At the moment, the situation at the top of the standings is pretty balanced. Nick Moss and Joe Osborne, the Optimum Motorsport pair driving a McLaren 720S, are leading by 16 points, thanks mainly to their double win at the Ricard, over the two Oregon Team pairs: Leonardo Pulcini-Benja Hites, who also took a double win in the season-opener at Estoril, are tied in points with their teammates Glenn Van Berlo-Kevin Gilardoni, in the other Lamborghini Huracan of the Italian team.
At Spa, they will all face a new tough opponent in the Pro category, as one of the top teams on the GT3 scene is making its debut: Haupt Racing Team (HRT) is making its first of several planned appearances with a Mercedes AMG entrusted to two young guns already well-known in GT3, Briton Frank Bird and Australian Jordan Love.
The Pro-Am class is notoriously the most well-attended and fiercely-fought this year. Leading the standings is the Mercedes of the newly-launched Saudi outfit Theeba Motorsport, with Reema Juffali (the first Saudi female driver at this level) and Adam Christodoulou having three race wins to their credit and a 6-point advantage in the standings on the Audi R8 LMS of Poland’s Olimp Racing driven by Marcin Jedlinski-Karol Basz.
In third position are tied the Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 of Roman Ziemian-Axcil Jefferies and the SPS automotive performance Mercedes of Swiss duo Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler.
Other top AMG cars in the class are the two GetSpeed machines of Janine Shoffner-Moritz Kranz and Sébastian Baud-Steve Jans. For Jans, this will be ‘home race’ as his native Luxembourg is only a few dozen km away. The other Mercedes in the class is the Team GT car, where former Am champion Florian Scholze is back for a one-off in replacement of Bernhard Laber alongside Alain Valente.
Swiss top team Kessel Racing has another Ferrari 488 in the class, entrusted to Murat Cuhadaroglu-David Fumanelli.
Two other brands are represented in Pro-Am, with the Audi R8 LMS of Aust Motorsport in its second outing with Dino Steiner-Max Hofer, while a Porsche 911 GT3R is back thanks to Singha Racing Team TP12. The Thai squad, supported by Earl Bamber Motorsport, taking in the race as part of a European multi-series tour, with Thailand Super Series Champion Piti Bhirombhakdi and former Euroformula racer Tanart Sathienthirakul, Sathienthirakul though was a late withdrawal with double Le Mans 24 Hours winner and former FIA WEC World Champion Earl Bamber instead making his debut in the International GT Open.
Bamber will therefore act both as team principal and co-driver, as the Thai outfit, which makes its GT Open debut this weekend, is technically supported by Earl Bamber Motorsport.
“It’s always nice to be at Spa and not usual to enjoy such a good weather”, said Earl on Thursday afternoon, “We are delighted to discover the GT Open, and to do it at this special endurance race.”
The show is high-quality also in the Am class, where the Austrian duo Alex Hrachowina-Martin Konrad (Mann Filter Team Landgraf Mercedes), despite three wins in four races, has only a 4-point lead over two Ferrari 488s.
Omar Jackson-Charlie Hollings, the British duo of Kessel Racing, won the inaugural race of the season, while the AF Corse pair of Laurent De Meeus and Jamie Stanley will aim at taking its first win on the home soil of De Meeus.
The Prancing Horse can also count on the Olimp Racing car of Stanislaw Jedlinski-Krystian Korzeniowski, and a second Kessel Racing car for Stephen Earle-Erwin Zanotti, while GetSpeed fields in the class its third Mercedes, for Adam Osieka and Kiki Sak Nana.
Lamborghini is represented in the class by Il Barone Rampante, with the Huracan of Giuseppe Cipriani, while Baporo Motorsport is back with its Mercedes AMG severely damaged at Estoril, with Daniel Díaz-Varela being paired with a driver to be nominated.
