Second in Silverstone after a stunning race and a great performance of Laurens Vanthoor, together with his team mates, the German René Rast and Stéphane Ortelli from Monaco, put the #1 WRT Audi R8 LMS Ultra back in a good position for the Blancpain Endurance Series. Laurens Vanthoor drove a very strong middle stint and is very confident for the rest of the season in this top-rated European GT series.
Silverstone is British motorsport’s home ground and every driver wants to stand on the podium of the mythical track, where over the years so many great drivers made history. And so did Laurens Vanthoor also. The Belgian Audi GT works driver knew that if wanted to keep his championship chances alive, a top performance was what was required. Already during qualifying, the crew in the Belgian Audi had performed well and things looked good with a position on the third row of the starting grid.
Laurens Vanthoor: “Qualifying can be compared to a lottery with so many cars on the track, so having a clear lap is almost like winning that lottery… We managed to perform well and ended up on the third row… in front of 52 other similar GT3 cars. Don’t forget that this championship has no different divisions; so all the cars are identical and thus very closely matched. Putting your car on top of the timesheet is very important in order to come home in a good position.”
The Audi got away very well and after a very solid stint from senior driver Stéphane Ortelli, Laurens started to work his way up through the field. After a dramatic team fight, with fellow WRT Audi driver Frank Stippler, he managed to bring the car back into the pit lane in 2nd overall. René Rast secured second and 18 more points in the championship. Laurens Vanthoor takes 4th in the provisional rankings, a mere 11 units behind the leaders, with 108 points still to be distributed.
Laurens Vanthoor: “The winning Aston was just some seconds stronger than we were and so they deserve that first place. Except for that, everything ran perfectly, the car was great, WRT did an awesome job in the pit lane, my team mates were again tremendous, what more can I say?”
Laurens’s next race is at Zandvoort, hosting the third round of the FIA GT Series on the 6th and 7th of July.
Source : Laurens Vanthoor