24h Series - 12h Zandvoort Preview
Circuit Park Zandvoort in Netherlands at Friday and Saturday will be the venue for the second running of the Hankook 12h Zandvoort race, the third round of the 2015 24h Series powered by Hankook.
In total, some 50 GTs, touring cars and 24h Specials will be on the grid for the race at the famous Grand Prix circuit in the dunes on the Dutch North Sea coast. Because of noise regulations the race has been split up into two parts: the first three hours of race will take place on Friday afternoon, with the remaining nine hours to be run on Saturday.
There will be many of world’s renown endurance and touring cars drivers on the grid. Five times’ DTM champion Bernd Schneider is scheduled to race #2 HP Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, together with Austrian Hari Proczyk and Germans Carsten Tilke and Reinhold Renger.
Dutch drivers are, of course, also keen to do well on home soil, like Peter Kox, who is back win the Scuderia Praha #4 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, with which he came so close to winning the race at Zandvoort last year. WTCC driver Tom Coronel will share GDL Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 with father and son Ivo and Rik Breukers to form the only all-Dutch line-up in the A6 GT3 category.
Another Dutch driver in the A6 class is Christiaan Frankenhout, who is, like last year, part of an identical line-up on two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s of Swiss team Hofor Racing, together with Michael Kroll, Chantal Kroll, Roland Eggimann and Kenneth Heyer.
HB Racing Team Herberth with #7 Porsche 997 GT3 R has won previous race (12h of Mugello) and its drivers are among crews which can be at podium this time.
Other teams in the A6 class are Car Collection Motorsport with two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s, Ram Racing with another gullwing, Simpson Motorsport with an Audi R8 LMS.
Good competition is expected in the Porsche Cup class, with nine entries from seven teams. Dutch driver Xavier Maassen, entered on the number 20 MRS GT Racing Porsche, will have a particularly busy weekend as right after the race at Zandvoort, he will be heading to Le Mans to take part in the official test day in preparation for the 24-hour race there on Sunday.
In the SP2 class, two of the MARC Cars Australia silhouette cars will be taking on the French GC Automobile team. The SP3 class will have five cars on the grid, with BMW, Ginetta, Aston Martin and Lotus GT4 cars and a Porsche 996 Cup car.
Next to the GTs, silhouettes and 24h Specials, there are plenty of touring cars as well. Five BMWs have been entered in the A5 class. In the A3T class, one SEAT Leon Supercopa will be competing against two Peugeot 208 GTis. The CUP1 class for BMW M235i Racing Cup cars includes five cars. Six cars are racing in class A2 and there will be three diesel-powered touring cars on the grid.
Track action starts on Friday with free practice from 12.20 till 13.20 hrs. Qualifying is held from 13.30 till 14.40 hrs, followed by the first part of the race from 16.00 till 19.00 hrs. The second part of the race starts at 8.43 hrs on Saturday and ends at 17.45 hrs.
The race will be broadcast live on Motors TV. A live stream with commentary by the team from Radiolemans.com can also be accessed on the series’ website, www.24hseries.com, and on the series’ Youtube channel. Of course, fresh informations you will get also at SnapLap Tweeter and SnapLap Facebook pages.
