Blancpain Sprint Series Algarve - day 1

After over a month of summer pause, Blancpain GT series is back in Portugal for sprint type event on the Algarve circuit near the town of Portimao. The Algarve track is well known as modern and interesting raceway, 4.7 kilometers long and with mix of dynamic slow and fast curves. The racing weekend has started on Thursday with drivers briefings but day 1 is Friday with two practice sessions.

The Friday’s practice sessions started at noon with a hour and a half of free driving. Nice and hot weather suited the drivers but the wind did effect the aerodynamics set ups by the team mechanics. However, after the first practice session the fastest time was achieved by Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 R-EX with 1:45.223 result. This is very interesting because Gallardo is an “old” car compared to newer and faster GT3 cars and its own sibling – Lamborghini Huracan GT3, but obviously still very competitive and good. Drivers Albert von Thurn und Taxis and Nick Catsburg had almost same times and finished in front of Bentley Continental GT3 on second and Audi R8 LMS Ultra on third place.

The second practice session started in the afternoon and also lasted for hour and a half  and was dominated by Bentley Continental GT3 from HTP Bentley team. Vincent Abril managed to achieve time of 1’44.871 minutes which is notably faster than time achieved in first practice session. Since this is only free training we can expect times to go even full second lower than those from today’s outings. For full results click HERE and stay tuned for more race coverage.

Photos: blancpain-gt-series.com