Emil Frey Racing: Season starts at Imola 🎥
THE GT WORLD CHALLENGE The Blancpain GT Series will become the GT World Challenge Europe in 2020. It starts on Sunday in Imola and sees Emil Frey Racing take center stage from a Swiss perspective. The teaser for the GT World Challenge Europe 2020, softly framed by music, provides a pictorial foretaste of what to expect from this weekend onwards. [...]
The softly musical teaser for the GT World Challenge Europe 2020 provides a pictorial foretaste of what to expect starting this weekend.
Preparations for the start of the GT World Challenge Europe were in full swing and official tests by all teams at Le Castellet had just been completed in March when the Corona pandemic brought worldwide motorsport to a standstill.
The entire racing calendar was postponed indefinitely. There was great uncertainty as to whether and when the 2020 racing season would start.
Season starts at Imola instead of Monza
After the forced break of around five months, the long-awaited season opener will take place this weekend with the first endurance race. The venue is the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, where Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger had their fatal accidents on the same GP weekend in 1994.
As in other racing series, a strict protection concept applies. Therefore, neither spectators nor guests of the teams are allowed.
Following the departure of long-time title sponsor Blancpain, the world's most important GT series is getting a new name in its tenth season. The official name is GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.
The longest race in GT history
The championship consists of four endurance races and four times two one-hour sprint races. The late season highlight is the 24 Hours of Spa, which would actually have been scheduled for this last weekend in July.
Curious: because the night of October 24-25 marks the changeover from daylight saving to winter time, the traditional classic will exceptionally last 25 hours.
With Emil Frey Racing and without R-Motorsport
The Corona crisis did not have a major impact on participation. With 46 registered teams, it is worthy of all honor. One of the most significant absentees is Team R-Motorsport St. Gallen, which cooperates with British racing teams and is already focusing on 2021 with its Aston Martin.
The Swiss team flag is thus flying high for Emil Frey Racing. Due to the lockdown in Switzerland, the Safenwil-based team was also forced to interrupt its current preparations for the season.
Two years ago, they made a splash in the Blancpain GT Series with their Lexus GT3s. In 2019, a new partnership with Lamborghini Corse in the International GT Open saw them win the team and driver titles.
Now the two Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo from Safenwil will be entered in the GT World Challenge for the first time. The two driver pairings are Albert Costa Balboa/Giacomo Altoè/Franck Perera and Norbert Siedler/Mikael Grenier/.Ricardo Feller.
Premiere for Ricardo Feller...
Frenchman Perera and Feller, who lives not far from Safenwil, are new additions. For the only Swiss in the team, this offers another chance to prove the talent he showed in the ADAC GT Masters.
Ricardo Feller: "Finally, it's starting again! I contested my last race in October, and after this long break I'm naturally looking forward to the first race weekend all the more. We had a positive test in Imola and I think our Lamborghini suits the track well."
... and Louis Delétraz
In addition to the 20-year-old from the canton of Aargau and his team, other Swiss drivers have good chances of achieving top positions in the overall standings and the classes.
How Formula 2 driver debuts Louis Delétraz at GPX Racing in GT racing. His teammates on a Porsche are factory drivers Romain Dumas (F) and Thomas Preining (A).
An all-Swiss Porsche trio with ambitions in the Pro-Am Cup form Mauro Calamia, Ivan Jacoma and Roberto Pampanini.
Back on top GT stage is Alex Fontanawho shares a Mercedes-AMG with the young Frenchman in the AKKA ASP team. Lucas Légéret and a Chilean. Their ambitions are aimed at the Silver Cup.
In the same team, the second professional from Ticino, who appears as an Italian but is competing this year with a Swiss license, defends Raffaele Marciello its title.
Because Rolf Ineichen is prevented from attending on business, he will be replaced at short notice by Frenchman Matthieu Vaxivière in the Belgian Audi Team WRT at Imola.
Not yet really dry is the signature of Lucas Mauron in the contract with Imperiale Racing. The official Lamborghini GT3 junior will join factory driver Giovanni Venturini and experienced Lambo driver Kikko Galbiato at the wheel of another Huracán GT3 Evo.
Live on Youtube
Qualifying will take place on Saturday, July 25, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. The three-hour race starts at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. It can be watched under this Link can be followed in the Youtube live stream.
