Today, the Moscow City Racing event, fourth round of the 2015 Blancpain Sprint Series, was presented during the official press conference in Moscow. The event takes place on Friday July 3rd and Saturday July 4th at the Moscow Raceway.
The participants of the press conference included: Tom Sauer, head of Blancpain Sprint Series project in Moscow; Ekaterina Beltsevich, head of Moscow Raceway race track; Sergey Ivanov, executive director of the Russian Automobile Federation (RAF); Alexey Karachev, GT Russian Team driver, Mark Shulzhitskiy, Nissan GT Academy Team RJN driver and Mikhail Aleshin from SMP Racing team.
The late change in venue will in no way diminish the attraction of the first ever Russian round of the Blancpain Sprint Series : this quickly became clear during the press conference for the Moscow City Racing event. With a compact schedule – practice and qualifying on Friday, both the Qualifying and Main races on Saturday – a team or driver aiming for a good result at the Moscow Raceway cannot afford any big mistakes.
The entry list for the fourth round of the 2015 Blancpain Sprint Series looks impressive: beside the Series’ regular entries there are also four extra cars, all with at least one high level Russian driver. Former single-seater ace Mikhail Aleshin is one of them, SMP Racing aces Kyrill Ladygin and Victor Shaytar too (the latter won the GTE Am category in last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans) and of course Nissan GT Academy winner Mark Shulzhitskiy had to be part of the line-up too.
Stephane Ratel (CEO and founder of the SRO Motorsports Group): ‘We are very happy to be back in Russia, for the first time with the Blancpain Sprint Series. It’s a very strong competition, with the presence of eight manufacturers. The races are always entertaining, which will draw a lot of interest from the fans. For the event we have two Russian teams on the entry list, GT Russian Team with Mercedes and SMP Racing with Ferrari, and there will be at least six Russian drivers taking on the best GT drivers in the world. Russia is very important for us and we hope to build a strong relationship.”
Alexey Karachev (#70 GT Russian Team): “The Blancpain GT Series is a very interesting series, with a high level of competition, no matter whether it’s endurance or sprint. There is a high level of drivers as well, and I am very happy to be part of this series, which is a top notch organisation. The competition for the Russian race will be fierce, but everyone will do their best.”
Mark Shulzhitskiy (Nissan GT Academy Team RJN): “I have never been to Moscow Raceway, but it is a great honour for me to participate in this event. I started my professional career in the FIA GT Series, and the car has a lot improved since then. We will show our best and I am sure it will be an interesting race. I invite the fans to come over and I would like to thank Nissan for this wonderful present. It has always been my dream to participate in a race in Russia.”
Mikhail Aleshin (SMP Racing): “SMP Racing is participating with three cars, and the fact that we won Le Mans will increase the attraction of the event, I am sure. We expect to win and are very happy to drive in Russia, in front of our Russian fans. It’s great, because you already feel the pressure mounting, you feel that there is a lot of interest. The races will be great to watch, so I would like to invite everybody to come and join us.”