There will be an additional home-grown entry for the Blancpain Sprint Series round at Brands Hatch this weekend with the addition of a Triple Eight Racing BMW to the entry list.
The team’s BMW Z4 GT3 will be driven by the regular British GT pairing of Joe Osborne and Lee Mowle.
The duo will head to Brands Hatch fresh from last weekend’s race at Rockingham, where they finished sixth. Osborne and Mowle currently sit third in the British GT standings.
It will be a return to the Blancpain Sprint Series for Triple Eight, which took part in the Baku finale last year but has chosen to focus on the Endurance Series this season.
The team is aiming to challenge for honours in the Pro-Am class, and will do so with the same car model that won outright at the opening round at Nogaro.
“The BMW goes quite well at Brands, the strong aero package means we can carry good speed through the corners and put a challenge in under braking,” said Osborne.
“It’s a great package we have here, Lee is quick and not unfamiliar with the track, so you’ve got to think we’ll be able to go for the class win, despite the big international names we’re up against.”
Mowle added: “Any chance that arises to drive on a circuit such as the Brands Hatch GP track, I always want to look at it. It’s such a superb track and with the limitations applied to the number of days that the GP loop can be used, it adds to the reverence with which drivers hold the circuit.
“I’m also quite keen to see what Blancpain Sprint is all about. We did Baku last year as a team, but I wasn’t able to attend, so it will be a good insight into what the series is all about; it looked really good on TV last year at Brands. In the past the BMW has gone well at Brands, the circuit has a lot of world-class corners, let’s hope we can cause an upset on home turf.”
Despite the addition of Triple Eight, the entry list will remain at 19 cars for Brands Hatch with the Fach Auto Tech Porsche absent this time around.
Factory drivers Maxime Martin and Dirk Muller, who won at Nogaro, will not continue with BMW Team Brazil as the squad’s regular quartet of Caca Bueno/Sergio Jimenez and Valdeno Brito/Atila Abreu are available again after Stock Car duties ruled them out of the opener.
There’s one other change, with former 2007 British Formula 3 champion Marko Asmer returning alongside Alexey Vasilyev at the GT Russian Mercedes team in place of Christophe Bouchut.
