2015 Blancpain Sprint Brands Hatch – qualifying 1&2&3

The Saturday was very busy day at the Brands Hatch circuit. The second round of 2015 Blancpain Sprint series was in full force with practice session 1&2 followed by three qualifying sessions to complete the schedule. Each of the three qualifying sessions are 15 minutes long and they are designed to give each driver chance for a quick blast on the track and to achieve best lap time of the day. Those three short sessions are held in the afternoon, starting from 5 pm CET. However, the qualifying part of this Blancpain Sprint event is not over. Tomorrow, there will be qualifying race in the morning which will determine the exact place on the grid and it will last for an full hour, same as the main race which will be held Sunday’s afternoon.

However, there was fair share of excitement in Saturday’s qualifying sessions. But, let’s start from the beginning and qualifying session 1. The experienced Kevin Estre has got fastest time in new McLaren 650S GT3 which is a first good result that we have seen from this car. Since the introduction of 650S GT3, there wasn’t much of success despite the fact that this vehicle comes from a long line of very successful Blancpain cars like McLaren MP4-12C GT3. Craig Dolby and Sean Walkinshaw in Nissan GT-R GT3 were second fastest in car which was best on second practice session and second BMW Z4 GT3 from BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil was the third.

The qualifying session No 2 was dominated by Audi and Audi R8 LMS Ultra had the 1st,3rd and 4th fastest time. The second was the BMW Z4 GT3 from Sergio Jimenez but the Audis proved to be best. Interestingly, the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 R-EX was 6th and proved that it is an older car by today’s standards but it is still competent and fast racing car as we could see by lap times in second and in the third qualifying session.

The third and last qualifying session was again a Audi affair but with surprising Lamborghini LP 560-4 R-EX in second place. Since the only 10 cars were on the track, the overall ratings in the third session were easily predictable.