24h Spa: The Emil Frey Jaguar shows its claws
GT-SPORT The Swiss enter the world's biggest GT race today (start at 4.30 p.m.) with good chances. First and foremost Nico Müller and Marcel Fässler with their Audi R8s. Sensationally, one of the two Jaguars from Safenwil is on grid position 8. The enormous power density in the field of 63 GT3 sportscars is shown by the grid position of the Audi R8 LMS [...]
The starting position of Marcel Fässler's Audi R8 LMS shows how enormous the power density is in the field of 63 GT3 sports cars. In qualifying, 36 (!) cars were within one second of each other on the 7-kilometer Belgian GP circuit.
Fässler's Belgian regular partner Dries Vanthoor (B), with whom the man from Schwyz contests the entire Blancpain GT Series, missed out on the top 20 super pole qualifying by 4 thousandths of a second.
For the three-time Le Mans winner, who also won the Spa 24 Hours once in 2007 (with Corvette), this is no cause for concern. "It's brutally close. There are 25 teams here easily capable of winning - including us. You just have to react strategically in the right way all the time and stay on it until the closing stages."
Nico Müller starts from the third row
The best grid position of a Swiss driver will be occupied by Nico Müller's #1 Audi R8 LMS today at 4.30 p.m.. In contrast to the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Müller and Fässler will start on two different cars, both fielded by the Belgian team WRT.
Müller's partner René Rast posted the sixth-best time in Friday evening's final individual time trial. Two years ago Müller finished second, last year third.
The Emil Frey Jaguar Racing Team has been sensational so far. Albert Costa first managed a time in qualifying that was good enough for Super Pole. Then the Spaniard turned the eighth fastest lap in the #14 Emil Frey Jaguar G3 driven by Lorenz Frey, Stéphane Ortelli and himself.
"I'm proud of him and the whole team. It's terrific that we, as the smallest manufacturer, have already been able to put ourselves in such a good light at the world's biggest GT race. But we've also never been so well prepared. Now anything is possible," says Lorenz Frey. The second Jaguar #114 of Jonathan Hirschi, Christian Klien and Marco Seefried starts from 35th position.
The Mercedes of Edorardo Mortara and Raffaele Marciello starts the marathon from P13. However, the driver from Geneva and Ticino will start under the Italian flag. Their Ticino team-mates from Akka ASP, Alex Fontana and Daniele Perfetti, start from P30 with their Mercedes, directly behind the Lamborghini with Adrian Amstutz. Both teams start in the Pro-Am category.
Daniel Allemann, whose Porsche 911 GT3 R from Herberth Motorsport was second fastest in qualifying, has the best chance of a podium finish in the Pro-Am. Two of his teammates are the Young Professionals Sven Müller (a German with a Swiss passport) and Mathieu Jaminet (F) provided by Porsche.
In the Am category of non-professional drivers, the Ferrari 488 GT3 from Kessel Racing is on the best grid position. Christopher Zanella from Schaffhausen took second place on the grid with the Lamborghini from HB Motorsport, with which he finished third in the rain at the ADAC GT Masters in Zandvoort last Sunday.
Live broadcast on the Internet and intermittently on Eurosport1
The free-to-air TV channel Eurosport 1 will only report from the race on Sunday in two one-hour inserts from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and from 12 to 1 p.m. respectively. From 3:30 p.m., the sports channel will broadcast the final phase live.
However, the entire race can be followed in the live stream on the Blancpain GT Series homepage with English or French commentary. Highly recommended!
www.blancpain-gt-series.com/live
