The fastest time of the 37 teams participating in the ‘Bronze Test’ was a good start of the race weekend at Silverstone in the UK for Dutch driver, Max Koebolt. “Of course, we had hoped to continue that trend, but unfortunately, reality turned out to be different,” Koebolt admitted after the second round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup Season. At the end of the three-hour race, Koebolt and his Italian team-mates Giorgio Roda and Stefano Colombo were classified 30^th overall and ninth in the Pro-Am Cup with the BMW M6 GT3 run by BMW Team Italia. “Compared to the start of the season at Monza, where we were eliminated from the race after three laps by being punted off, the positive thing here is that we at least made it to the finish. Thus, we were able to acquire some valuable experience, but the fact is that we didn’t get the set-up of the car right and we were lacking too much speed as a result,” so Koebolt.

Of course, Koebolt had high hopes coming to Silverstone for the second season round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, especially after the disappointing retirement at Monza. With 53 cars registered, this event also had a particularly strong entry. “And no less than 18 of them were competing in the Pro-Am Cup, so that we were facing tough competition there as well,” the Dutch BMW driver emphasised. With a lap time of 2 minutes 01.599 seconds, Koebolt posted the fastest time of all competitors in the ‘Bronze Test’, the compulsory session for Pro-Am Cup and Am-Cup teams and some guest drivers. “That was a positive start of the weekend,” the driver reported.

In free practice, the BMW with starting number 15 was classified twelfth, which also still was a good result. “But after that, we clearly got it wrong with the set-up of the car,” Koebolt reported. “I was suffering from a lot of understeer, particularly in fast corners. In pre-qualifying, we ended up in 46^th place. After that, we decided to return to the set-up we had used for the ‘Bronze Test’, because it worked well then, but that didn’t bring the required solution either. Thus, we only were 36^th in qualifying, which was disappointing.”

The team then planned to try to make up a few places during the three hours of the race, but that was easier said than done. “The problems with the understeer continued and we were considerably lacking speed as a result,” Koebolt commented after the race.  Eventually, the Dutch-Italian trio of drivers with the BMW M6 GT3 of BMW Team Italia, run by the renowned ROAL Motorsport outfit, crossed the finish line in 30^th place overall and ninth in the Pro-Am-Cup. “Now, we have to analyse what caused the problems and, probably even more important, how we can solve them,” Koebolt says. “In the race, there wasn’t much I could do, because I simply was lacking speed.”

The next Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup round is the 1000-kilometre race at Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet in the south of France, scheduled for June 25. “Let’s hope that we will have sorted the problems then, so that we will at least be able to challenge for a top position in the Pro-Am-Cup, which certainly is the goal,” the driver says. “Now, first of all, I have to finish my exams and then I can fully focus on the race in France!”