Audi dominates Blancpain GT Series weekend at Zolder

Third round of the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup was held this weekend at Circuit Zolder in Belgium and Audi car won both races. Audi dominated this round after winning both races.

Qualifying race

In the first race of the weekend, Team WRT Audi R8 LMS #17 of Stuart Leonard and Robin Frijns grabbed the chequered flag after a great battle with #90 AKKA ASP Mercedes of Michael Meadows and Raffaele Marciello. The difference between two cars was just 0.8s. The Belgian Audi Club WRT had to be very happy at the end of the day after their car #2 of Will Stevens and Markus Winkelhock finished 3rd in the exciting race.

Stuart Leonard and Robin Frijns

How thrilling was the Saturday’s race shows the fact that the Top 5 were within under three seconds but the #17 car was able to keep the lead after starting from pole position. The #63 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart, who won both races of the previous round at Brands Hatch, crashed right after the start.

Main race

In the second race of the weekend, the #90 Mercedes took the lead from #17 Audi which dropped to the 4th position. The ISR Racing Audi #75 of Clemens Schmid and Filip Salaquarda moved up to the 2nd position and was followed by Team WRT Audi #2. Those three cars were well off to the rest of the grid after five laps but not for a long time. Michael Meadows in #90 Mercedes received a drive-through penalty because of the jump start and was out of contention for the victory, especially after receiving another drive-through soon after.

#75 Audi R8 of ISR Racing at Zolder

When the pit window was opened, three Audi cars were on the top but the standings changed after the pit stop. The Team WRT tires and driver change was much faster than the ISR Racing’s, so Will Stevens in the #2 became the race leader, followed by cars #75 and #17 which were well behind.

With 9 minutes to go, the safety car was deployed when the #86 Mercedes, which was running 5th at the moment, crashed. When the race was restarted, less than two minutes remained and nothing has changed in the top 3 standings what meant that Audi completely dominated this weekend.