Sant’Agata Bolognese, 8 April 2015. The seventh season starts in Monza this weekend, 10-12 April, for the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo Europe. As traditional the Italian circuit will host the first out of six double rounds of the Lamborghini and Blancpain one-make series, that this year sees the racing debut of the new Lamborghini Huracán LP 620-2 Super Trofeo.
The season opener in Monza features a record grid with more than 30 cars. A new qualifying format includes two 15-minute sessions (with a five minute pause in between) that will determine the grid of Race One (first session), with the second session setting the Race Two grid. Both races will still be run on the usual 50-minute distance with a mandatory pit stop.
The 2015 Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo will race across Europe on five iconic European circuits, always in conjunction with the Blancpain Endurance Series. The series will culminate in November at the North American venue of Sebring, which will also host the third edition of the World Final in the same week.
The 2015 Monza line-up features a 50% increase in new drivers and teams. Among the new drivers joining the pack will be an interesting mix of those with a solid background in GT Racing and youngsters with single-seater experience, both of which will enhance and contribute to the growing success of the series.
Among other newcomers will be Matteo Bobbi, 2013 FIA GT winner, who will share the wheel of the Bonaldi Motorsport PRO-AM car with the Brit Jay Palmer. The 2014 Italian winning team will also line up the Finn Patrick Kujala, involved in GP3 in the past two seasons. The debuting Raton Racing will line up two cars. The first will be for the 2014 PRO-AM champion, 19-year old Alberto Di Folco, who this year is upgraded to the PRO Class, while the second car will be for the under 23 duo made up of the Italian Edoardo Liberati (with several GT races under his belt), and the Swiss Patric Niederhauser (also involved in GP3 recently). Watch out too for the German Florian Spengler who will race in the PRO Class, also with Bonaldi Motorsport.
Simone Pellegrinelli moves to a new class: having stormed the AM Class in 2014, he will now face the PRO-AM challenge with one of the Autocarrozzeria Imperiale cars. Also to be watched are the fast duo Alberto Cerqui/Giacomo Barri, racing in the PRO Class.
The current International GT Open Champions Daniel Zampieri (ITA) and Roman Mavlanov (RUS) make up the first (out of two) duo lined up by the debuting Antonelli Motorsport.
Another newcomer is the Vincenzo Sospiri Racing team, which will field the Italian/Japanese crew Shinya Michimi/Kei Francesco Cozzolino. Other debuts in Monza include Artline Team Georgia, Automobile Tricolore, Konrad Motorsport, M-Tech, Sportec Motorsport, Team Lazarus and Veloso Motorsport.
The Swiss Cédric Leimer, 2011 and 2012 Champion, will again race under the Autovitesse Garage R. Affolter team’s banner. Other teams back on track include GRT Grasser Racing Team, Kinetic Racing Team and Leiper Motorsport.
At Monza, the first green flag is set for Friday morning with four free practice sessions. The new qualifying session is on Saturday morning at 11.15, while in the afternoon, at 3.05pm, the lights will go up on the 50-minute Race One. Race Two starts Sunday at 11.30am. All times CET.
Both races will be shown in Italy on Nuvolari TV (Ch.60 or 224/Cable). Race One will be delay broadcast at 6.00 pm CET, while Race Two will be LIVE Sunday at 11.30am CET. In Europe the races will be shown on Motors TV. Race One will be LIVE while Race Two will be shown at 8.30pm CET. Both races will be live streamed on the Lamborghini Squadra Corse
website: SQUADRACORSE.LAMBORGHINI.COM/EN/LIVE.
