Time has come for the Blancpain Sprint Cup’s last round, and the final and decisive battle could not find a more challenging venue: the Nürburgring. The legendary and demanding track in the Eifel hills has been often the scenery for the Endurance Cup grand finale, but this time will host the decisive races of the Sprint Cup. Still, the difficulties … and the weather will be the same.
The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT goes to Germany in good position: it leads the Teams’ standings with a reasonable advantage (13 points) although games are far from close, and has three pairs (out of the five in contention) fighting for the Drivers’ crown: both Dries Vanthoor-Marcel Fässler and Stuart Leonard-Robin Frijns are only 4 points away from the lead, with Markus Winkelhock-Will Stevens only two points behind them. Needless to say, it is going to be a tough but thrilling weekend for everybody…
Team Principal Vincent Vosse looks forward to the challenge: « The Sprint Cup is the series where we have the best title chances this year, so it is clearly our top objective… After the very successful weekend at Budapest, we lead the Teams’ standings and have three cars in the race for the Drivers’ title: we have some good cards in our hands and we need to play them well. The Nürburgring is a track we know well and where the Audis perform well, although the latest BoP will penalize us a bit, but I am confident we will be competitive. We’ll need to qualify well, in order to be in the race for the title the rest of the weekend. Then, of course, a lot of things can happen; there are a lot of variables, including the weather, with the forecasts pointing towards very changeable conditions. Regarding the title fight between our three pairs, it is clear that we’ll leave each of them free to play their cards, and that we expect all the drivers to behave like grown-up kids. We have no pre-established team strategy, and we’ll see if we need one during the weekend. »
Tied in third position in the standings, but only 4 points behind the leader, are two of the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT pairs. In car #5, Dries Vanthoor and Marcel Fässler hope to finish on a high a season that did not start well for them. Ahead of the decisive round, Dries Vanthoor does not seem to feel the pressure: « For sure, it is going to be a hard weekend