The 2019 Blancpain GT series enter’s its sixth season and continues to grow with no sign of slowing down. Monza once again will be the host for the season opener with 49 cars officially entered.
The Pro Class again is set to steal the show with 19 cars to take the flag and compete for the outright win at the historic Italian circuit.
Black Falcon return as title holders of the Endurance cup, the same driver line up will take to the track to defend their crown. Maro Engel, Yelmer Buurman and Luca Stolz will lead the AMG fight with 2 other Pro squads backing them up.
AKKA ASP come to the party with Raffaele Marciello, Michael Meadows and new boy to the team Vincent Abril. Strakka Racing enter the pro class after taking the Pro-AM drivers title last season.
Audi bring their Brand new R8 LMS EVO for the battle this year, it won first time out at the 2019 24 hours of Dubai, the car’s proven already now it’s just down to the teams to take the car to more victories.
Belgian Audi club WRT took the opening round last year and aim to repeat the win at Monza once again, Sainteloc Racing join the Pro class as well as Attempto Racing both also gained knowledge at the Dubai 24 hours will their new Audi EVO spec machinery.
More new machinery come’s from Lamborghini this year, again an EVO spec car from the original Huracan GT3.
Grasser Racing Team will field a solo car in the pro class but FFF racing set’s their eyes on the big prize be entering 2 of the 2019 EVO Huracan GT3‘s.
Newcomer to the series Dinamic motorsport will enter a single brand new Porsche 911 GT3 R but the most notable addition to the Porsche marque is the ROWE Racing, supporting BMW for many years, it came as huge shock to see this German squad make the leap over the wall into the Porsche camp for the 2019 season.
Bentley returns to the grid with 2 cars of the 2018 version of the Continental GT3. The M-Sport squad looking forward to the season and celebrate the centenary year of the brand with some success
Aston Martin will be running all new machinery this season. R-motorsport will be looking to repeat their fantastic season performances last year with this all new AMR Vantage GT3.
Garage 59 Jump ship from one British marque to another, the former Mclaren outfit have entered 1 Pro Class AMR Vantage GT3 from their 2 brand new Aston Martin Vantage’s
Credit: Mike widdowson of MJW Media
Blancpain wouldn’t be the same without at least 1 Ferrari in the Pro class, this year again brought to you by SMP Racing, the Russian outfit go again with the same drivers as 2018 in the same Ferrari 488 GT3.
With 19 cars running in the Pro field, it leaves 30 entrants spread across the Silver, Pro-AM and AM classes.
The Silver cup is the most populated with 13 entrants. Lamborghini are looking strong for class honours with five Huracan’s entered in both the EVO and original spec from FFF Racing, Barwell Motorsport, Ombra Racing Daiko Lazarus Racing and Grasser Racing Team.
Rinaldi Racing bring their fantastic Ferrari 488 GT3 whilst Honda is welcomed to the grid for the full season with Jenson Team Rocket RJN. Porsche are represented by GPX Racing who bring their fantastic Gulf Livery to the grid and who isn’t happy to see a Gulf Livered Porsche?
AMG have entries from Black Falcon and AKKA ASP in the silver class whilst Phoenix Racing join Belgian Audi Club Team WRT will use all their experience to try and claim the class honours.
PRO-AM will no doubt be a dogfight all season long with teams such as Sainteloc running EVO spec Audi and Ram Racing joining the grid again. Ram Racing have been enjoying great success in GT open Tom Onslow-cole and Remon Vos. Tempesta Racing joins the Grid too with a Ferrari 488 GT3 who have been showing some real strong pace in pre season testing.
Barwell Motorsport aim to defend their AM cup title, running another new Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO, Target racing are another outfit to look out for after a really strong performance in the Dubai 24 hours in January where the team ran up amongst the top pro cars until the car had trouble with an hour left on the clock.
Another fantastic grid to make the start of the Blancpain Endurance Cup season but with a sad twist. 2019 looks as though it will be the first time since the beginning of the Blancpain series back in 2014 that we won’t have a Mclaren present on the grid in any form despite having the new 720s GT3 released this season for competition, we may see it appear at one-off rounds but so far there’s no Mclaren’s entered at all this season.
The Monza round is Scheduled to be a three-hour affair in the Italian parkland circuit with the green flag to be dropped at 15:00 Local time.
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