Blancpain: The Marc VDS strikes a double blow

Bas Leinders, Markus Palttala and Maxime Martin are the strong men at the start of the Championship. After winning the first race of the season at Monza, the #4 BMW Z3 of Marc VDS Racing won in the rain at Silverstone, taking the advantage over the two Audi R8 LMS of Team WRT who finished almost a minute from the victorious car. The Marc VDS signs its fourth victory in the discipline after its two successes at Magny-Cours and Silverstone in 2011. Andrea Piccini, Laurens Vanthoor and Edward Sandström take second place ahead of the sister car n°1 of Christopher Haase, Christopher Mies and Stéphane Ortelli.

Peter Kox and Marc A. Hayek took the victory in the Pro-Am category with the No. 600 Lamborghini Gallardo LP24 from Reiter Engineering, which took fourth place in the general classification, almost two minutes behind the R8 LMS. The No. 4 BMW Z36 of DB Motorsport drivers Jeroen den Boer, Stéphane Lémeret and Jeffrey van Hooydonck completes the top five ahead of three Ferrari 458 (the Sofrev ASP and the two Vita4ones from Team Italy). Grégory Franchi, Adam Carroll and Frank Kechele, drivers of the Vita4one Z3 GT4 who were on pole for the event, finally finished in ninth place. After taking second place on the grid, Grégoire Demoustier and Duncan Tappy finished the race in 13th place with the McLaren ART GP MP4-12C.

Discover the Blancpain report Endurance Series at Silverstone in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version for iPad, PC and Mac, and from Wednesday on newsstands.