Enzo Ide, the West-Flanders based driver is this season competing in the European GT Sprint Championship or Blancpain GT Sprint Series and for the fifth meeting of the season the prestigious championship called in on the beautiful Algarve region in southern Portugal. With the Audi R8 LMS Ultra of the Belgian top team of Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Enzo Ide and his German teammate René Rast finished third in the qualifying race and sixth in the main race held on Sunday. Rast and Ide are now lying fourth in the championship, still within sight of a final overall podium, in just over two months on the Baku circuit in Azerbaijan.
Portimao is one of the most awesome circuits that the most highly rated GT championship in Europe calls on. It is on this circuit that in the past Enzo Ide scored one of his first international victories and so this West-Flanders driver’s expectations were high, especially following his excellent results over the last few months.
Everything started off well for Enzo Ide, who was in third place on the grid for Saturday’s race. Both he and his teammate retained that place and as such were back on the podium.
Enzo Ide (#2 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi): “We’re lacking top speed on the straight, but that’s all part of racing. I think the balance between the cars is pretty good now. I love this circuit, having earlier clinched my first victory here in the FIA GT3 European Championship. That bodes well for tomorrow’s race.”
Unfortunately at the start Enzo Ide was the victim of a poor manoeuvre from another competitor. He fell back, but with their joint forces he and René Rast still managed to pull a sixth place out of the bag.
Enzo Ide: “Just after the restart, there had been a safety car, I was up behind another Audi driver. As I started to accelerate, and for some unknown reason he was still in neutral, I obviously was obliged to lift off. That’s how I lost it and dropped back to the bottom of the rankings … I could also have driven into him, but that would have resulted in a major crash. It’s most unfortunate, because I reckon we could have performed well here. We now have two races left in which to pull out all the stops and ensure that we finish up front in the championship. Going for the title will be difficult, but an overall final podium should be on the books.”
The following race of the Blancpain Sprint takes place on 18th and 19th October at Circuit Zolder, in Belgian Limburg