The Belgian Racing Car Championship (BRCC) held its second round for 2014 in France this weekend, at the Dijon circuit. W Racing Team (WRT) joined the regular season Audi entrants, PK Carsport.
PK Carsport finished second at the season opener at Zolder last time out. They were back on the grid this weekend, fielding their #1 Audi R8 LMS for Anthony Kumpen, Bert Longin and Frank Beliën.
W Racing Team fielded one of their Audi R8 LMS ultra cars at the French BRCC event for Harry Teneketzian and Grégoire Chaix, who also competed with WRT at the opening round of the French V de V Endurance Series at Catalunya in March.
PK Carsport was entered in the GT Pro class for older GT3 machinery and WRT was entered in the GT Pro Evo class for newer cars.
The weekend started well for the Audi Sport customer acing squad, as WRT took pole position. PK Carsport qualified sixth overall, behind five GT Pro Evo cars, the fastest GT Pro qualifier.
The three-hour race was held on Sunday and WRT came home to take second overall, finishing a mere 1.267 seconds behind the race winners. PK Carsport unfortunately dropped back and retired following an accident.
Round three of the BRCC will be heading to Zandvoort, 4-6 July.
W Racing Team (WRT) will be entering an Audi R8 LMS ultra at round two of the Belgian Racing Car Championship.
The Belgian team will be entering the car for drivers Harry Teneketzian and Grégoire Chaix, who also competed with WRT at the opening round of the French V de V Endurance Series at Catalunya in March.
Together with WRT, the grid at round two will also see the regular BRCC entrants and reigning BRCC endurance drivers champions', PK Carsport, with their #1 Audi R8 LMS. The second round of the BRCC will be heading to Dijon in France, 9-11 May.
The first round of the French V de V Endurance Series was held at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Two Audi Sport customer racing teams took part in the season opener.
W Racing Team (WRT) fielded the #4 Audi R8 LMS ultra in the GTV 1 class for drivers Harry Teneketzian, Grégoire Chaix and Julien Jousse.
The second Audi was fielded by AB Sport Auto. The older specification #45 Audi R8 LMS was entered in the GTV 2 class and driven by Franck Thybaud, Maxime Jousse and Michel Wegelin.
The #4 WRT Audi qualified seventh overall and in the GTV 1 class. The #45 AB Sport Auto R8 LMS qualified seventeenth overall, taking eighth in the GTV 2 class.
WRT were involved in the lead battle, but they ultimately retired from the four hour race. AB Sport Auto soldiered on to an eleventh place overall finish, third in class.
The next round of the V de V Endurance Series will be heading to Le Mans, at Circuit Bugatti from 18-20 April.
The V de V Endurance Series Facebook page has revealed their initial entrants for the 2014 season. An Audi R8 LMS ultra from WRT is included on the list.
W Racing Team will be fielding one Audi R8 LMS ultra for Harry Teneketzian and Grégoire Chaix. The pair are no strangers to the R8 LMS, as they were seen behind the wheel of an ex-WRT R8 LMS entered by AB Sport Auto during the 2012 and 2013 V de V seasons (2013 pictured above).
WRT has previously competed in the V de V, when they entered a single Audi R8 LMS for François Verbist, Yves Weerts and Kurt Mollekens at Catalunya in Spain, round one of the 2012 V de V Endurance Series.
The 2014 V de V season gets underway at Catalunya from 21-23 of March.
The first of two British GT Championship races in Holland was held today. The two Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were within the top 10.
Earlier today both United Autosports and W Racing Team (WRT) performed well in the two qualifying sessions. In Race 1 the two teams managed to finish within the top 10, in a very demanding field. The best Audi finisher was the #25 R8 LMS ultra, driven by Matt Bell and Mark Patterson, in seventh place. They recovered very well as they started from position sixteenth of the grid. Matt Bell had very strong pace after taking over the car from Mark Patterson in the second part of the race.
The other Audi entry, the #5 R8 LMS ultra managed by the Belgians from WRT, finished ninth. The car driven by Warren Hughes and Rembert Berg had an early problem on lap 4 of the 1-hour race. The car was forced to head to pitlane, losing time and ground to the leaders. The WRT Audi charged back and gained a lot of positions in the field. They finished ninth in the end, a good performance after the bad luck at the beginning of the race.
Race victory went to the pole-sitting #1 Porsche 997 GT3 R from Motorbase. Second was the #888 BMW Z4 GT3 from 888 Optimum Racing and third the #18 Ferrari 458 GT3 from FF Corse.
Three Audi R8 LMS ultra in the FIA GT Series and in the Blancpain Endurance Series
The Nürburgring and Zolder 24 Hour races also in the team’s diary
Belgium’s Laurens Vanthoor joined by international stars
The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT invited the press today at its premises in Baudour to present its 2013 sporting programme. Not a short one, it must be said!
The Belgian team will enter three Audi R8 LMS ultra – in 2013 specifications – in both the Blancpain Endurance Series and the FIA GT Series. In the new sprint series launched by SRO, Swedish driver Edward Sandström will partner with Germany’s Frank Stippler, while another car will be driven by Belgium’s Laurens Vanthoor and Monaco’s Stéphane Ortelli. «These two line-ups composed of drivers who are already part of the WRT family will be joined by a third duo, entered in the Pro-Am category, composed of Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof from Austria and Germany’s René Rast», explains Belgian Audi Club Team WRT team principal Vincent Vosse. «René has repeatedly confirmed in recent years that he is a top GT driver and Nikolaus has done an excellent season with Vita4One last year. The pair can certainly aim at the Pro-Am title! Our objective as a team is to do better than the third place conquered in 2012.»
The FIA GT Series will kick-off this weekend with the traditional ‘Coupes de Pâques’ at the Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro, in South-West France. Saturday’s qualifying session will give a first glimpse of the 2013 hierarchy, while the one-hour Qualifying Race will start at 2:30 pm on Sunday. The Championship Race, also of one hour duration, will start at 2:15 pm on Easter Monday, following the Easter Cup tradition. ./..
As in the FIA GT Series, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT will enter three cars also in the Blancpain Endurance Series. Once again, the driver line-ups have been carefully selected, in cooperation with Audi Sport. «We have been the Drivers’ and Teams’ Champions for two years in a row, in 2011 and 2012 », reminds Vincent Vosse, «and we hope to do as well this year!»
To that end, the team has called in some of the drivers involved in the FIA GT Series. René Rast will partner Laurens Vanthoor and Stéphane Ortelli while Edward Sandström and Frank Stippler will be joined by German driver Christopher Mies, a member of the Champion trio last year. Another of the FIA GT Series drivers, Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof, will team up with the fast New-Zealander Matt Hallyday, who shone in GT1 last year, and Switzerland’s Rahel Frey, who joins straight from the DTM. This year, the three Audis R8 LMS ultra of the Belgian squad will be included in the Pro Cup category.
This double programme, which includes the Total 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, will be complemented with two other one-day races : the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring on 19-20 May and the 24 Hours of Zolder on 31st August-1st September. At both instances, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT will be present with a single car entry. «It’s still too early to announce the names of the drivers at the wheel of WRT’s cars in those two races», says Vincent Vosse, «but what I can say is that we won’t go there just to fill the grid.»
No doubt: the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT is committed defend Audi’s nametag in the GT scene and the 2013 season promises to be busy and exciting !
2013 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Driver Line-ups
FIA GT Series #11 Stéphane Ortelli (MC) - Laurens Vanthoor (BE) (Pro) #12 Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof (AT) - René Rast (DE) (Pro-Am) #13 Edward Sandström (SE) - Frank Stippler (DE) (Pro)
Blancpain Endurance Series #1 Stéphane Ortelli (MC) - Laurens Vanthoor (BEL) - René Rast (DE) (Pro) #2 Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof (AT) – Matt Halliday (NZ) - Rahel Frey (CH) (Pro) #13 Edward Sandström (SE) - Frank Stippler (DE) – Christopher Mies (DE) (Pro)
Audi won the Spa 24 Hours outright last year with the Audi R8 LMS. This weekend the Ingolstadt brand will try to defend its title with four officially entered Audi R8 LMS ultra cars. Two cars from Audi Sport Team Phoenix and two from Audi Sport Team WRT. Audi could make history as well by winning the three major 24 hour races in Europe in the same year: The Nürbrugring, Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hour races. The race itself is not only prestigious but it is also round 4 of the Blancpain Endurance Series, where only Team WRT compete on a full season basis. Here are the official liveries of the four Audi cars.
Audi Sport Team WRT:
#1 Audi Sport Team WRT: Christopher Haase, Christopher Mies and Stephane Ortelli
#2 Audi Sport Team WRT: Edward Sandstrom, Laurens Vanthoor and Marco Bonanomi
Audi Sport Team Phoenix:
#6 Audi Sport Team Phoenix: Andre Lottere, Marcel Fassler and Tom Kristensen
#16 Audi Performance Cars Team Phoenix: Andrea Piccini, Frank Stippler and Rene Rast
The 2012 Spa 24 Hours is fast approaching. WRT are heading to the event with one goal, to defend the title of Spa 24 Hour winners. The race is scheduled for the 28th and 29th of July and two WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra cars will be on the grid for the title defence.
Here is the WRT team’s video preview trailer for the event to increase the excitement for the race that is less than a week away.
The Belgian W Racing Team (WRT) was victorious at the 2011 Spa 24 Hours. The 2012 edition of the Belgian endurance race is less than a week away and WRT will be back to defend their title with a pair of Audi R8 LMS ultra race cars.
The 2011 Spa 24 Hours was the first event where WRT produced an event review video. The video was brilliant and started the tradition of WRT producing videos after each of the team’s major event participations. All three parts of the 2011 WRT Spa video has been included below. It is a great video and offers a glimpse into the workings of the WRT team, enjoy:
Round 4 of the 2012 FIA GT1 World Championship is being held at the Slovakia Ring. A track infamous for the flying back straight where cars can get there front wheels lifting off the ground.
For Audi fans there was a big scare during qualifying this morning. Stéphane Ortelli in the #32 WRT Audi R8 LMS was pushing like crazy to extract every last bit of performance from the Audi R8 LMS ultra when he had a massive high speed off. Ortelli displayed huge amounts of car control has he managed to miss the wall not once but twice. This off was a massive scare for Audi fans as the possible contact with the wall would probably have ended the #32 car crew’s weekend, or at least ended that specific chassis’s participation.
Some are blaming offs like this on BoP (Balance of performance) which is resulting in drivers having to drive above the limit because of performance disadvantages due to the vagrancies of the rules. The effects of BoP are clearly visibly amongst the teams on the FIA GT1 grid, some for better and others for worse. BoP is a very difficult and equally sensitive topic in racing, hopefully it will be improved for FIA GT1 very soon, it would be a shame if the class of FIA GT1 becomes tainted due to something like BoP.
Stéphane Ortelli saves the #32 WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra
The Belgian Audi Club WRT team have competed in their second major event of 2012, the first round of the Blancpain Endurance Series at Monza. The team very nearly won the event but due to various factors finished in the second and sixth positions.
As has become tradition WRT prepares a video of each of their race events. Here is the latest video, featuring the team at Monza. Enjoy:
The Belgian W Racing Team, also known as Belgian Audi Club Team Team WRT have become known to make some excellent videos documenting their motorsport activities. Last year they brought us breathtaking videos from the Spa 24 Hours, their debut in the Malaysian 12 Hour race at Sepang and many other races.
Last weekend saw WRT's debut in the FIA GT1 World Championship with the perfect result. The team scored a 1-2 finish in both the weekend’s races. Now this calls for celebration and a nice way to celebrate it with their fans is with another race video from WRT.
Here it is: An exciting fifteen minute video compilation which encompasses this brilliant WRT triumph.
Enjoy the video bellow:
The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT dominate the opening weekend of FIA GT1
Earlier in the year Audi fans saw some clues from the Belgian W Racing Team regarding a specific French championship. The WRT team took part in the V de V series test days at Dijon and rumours surrounding a few WRT V de V race participations emerged. V de V is a French championship for a variety of different race cars which compete in both sprint and endurances races across Europe.
The opening round of the V de V series took place in Spain at the Catalunya circuit for a 6 hour endurance race on the weekend of April 1st. Originally a total of four Audi R8 LMS cars had been entered for the race. Two from WRT and one from both JWS Racing and AB Sport Auto. Despite four cars on the original entry list only two cars would ultimately take part. One car from WRT driven by François Verbist, Yves Weerts and Kurt Mollekens and one car from JWS driven by William David and Jean-Marc Quintois. The WRT team had originally planned two cars, one for the team bosses to have some fun in and the other to be driven by more rapid drivers, but in the end only one car took part in an event deemed to be more for fun and preparation than for out right results. The JWS Racing entry was also aimed for preparation. This was the first race meeting for the JWS Racing team and their goal was to use the race to prepare for the 2012 French GT Tour season.
Both teams qualified very well for the race with WRT claiming class pole followed by JWS second in class, 4th and 6th overall respectively. The race got underway in very warm conditions with some great racing. JWS unfortunately retired early on lap 6 after an on-track incident. The team was very disappointed but they are fully focused on their next race, the season opener of the French GT Tour. WRT soldiered on in the 6 hour race which served as a good warm up for the team’s busy 2012 season, ahead of their FIA GT1 debut one week after this event. WRT finished the 6 hour endurance race in 4th position overall and 2nd position in class.
The 6 hours of Catalunya served as a good warm up for the both JWS Racing and WRT teams. We will soon see both teams and their R8 LMS cars in action again in various other races around Europe and in the case of WRT, around the world as well.
