2014 Blancpain Endurance Series

[Rodger Davies]

Hardly the same concepts, very different cars.

[Coach Ep]

Five more cars announced, all run or supported by AF Corse: http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/n...s-for-af-corse

[JoestForEver]

Wonder how big the budget of AF corse is, appearing everywhere of GT racing.;-)

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Wonder how big the budget of AF corse is, appearing everywhere of GT racing.;-)

For WEC surely is Ferrari Corse that gives budget, cars and drivers to AF Corse, for BES are gentleman drivers to cover the budget.

[Rodger Davies]

aye, the question isn't the size of the budget, it's the size of the profit!

It's a pity that there's no interest in entering pro cars outside the WEC though, would love to see a competitive front-runner at the GT3 enduros in an AF Corse car. Hopefully Kessel will return with their pro entry.

[urdragon]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Wonder how big the budget of AF corse is, appearing everywhere of GT racing.;-)

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

aye, the question isn't the size of the budget, it's the size of the profit!

So no red numbers at the BES, but green ones instead.

Probably BES income is paying the WEC PRO effort, The Intl champs allways do.

To be good, Once the grid should be filled at 50 cars the grid should be closed and the remaining entry requests kicked off to the Sprint series.

[MJ_N_09]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Wonder how big the budget of AF corse is, appearing everywhere of GT racing.;-)

Quest for World GT domination?

[JoestForEver]

As for pro drivers, I believe Toni Vilander was already a full season player in BES/FIA GT in 2013?

[carbon_titanium]

Vilander ran during 24 hours of spa for the Cameron/Griffin AF Corse car. The car that won the gt-am class, but wasn't a full season driver.
I'm sure that for the gt-pro WEC program, AF Corse is paid and fully supported (cars, drivers and engineers) by Ferrari Corse, basicly the same way team Manthey is supported by Porsche. AF Corse however owns some cars, so the team earns money from gentleman drivers in gt-am and giving assistance to 8star motorsport.
BES is a more indipendent program, and like WEC gt-am, AF Corse earns money with gentleman rides.
It would be great to see an AF Corse pro in BES with Bruni, Vilander and Fisichella onboard, but I think this will depend more by Ferrari Corse will than AF corse.

[Beetle]

Ecurie Ecosse confirms their Blancpain Endurance efforts.

[helgi]

Where did I hear some mentions about development freeze in GT3 for 2014? But some time ago Nissan have presented their new 2014 spec, now Ferrari testing 458 2014 spec. Are there any sufficient upgrades or is it just another nonsense advertising?

[Rodger Davies]

Isn't it the GTE version that Ferrari are testing?

That Ecurie Ecosse livery is very pretty, hope the Johnsons return with the second car in BGT too.

[Miguel]

Development for reliability is still open, might just be that.

[JoestForEver]

From audi sport blog you can see that performance development is frozen.

[helgi]

OK, thanks for answers.

[NaBUru38]

Now, how many Pro Cup entries are confirmed so far?

[Rodger Davies]

0. I think. We can guess that HTP will have one or two, Bentley said at least one but that was before Stephane's "no works teams" comment, Aston have talked about it, WRT will do it if they're supported , Marc VdS won't be there, all others up in the air. I would not expect full knowledge before end of March.

[NelisB]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

0. I think. We can guess that HTP will have one or two, Bentley said at least one but that was before Stephane's "no works teams" comment, Aston have talked about it, WRT will do it if they're supported , Marc VdS won't be there, all others up in the air. I would not expect full knowledge before end of March.

What's MarcVDS going to do this year then?

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by NelisB

What's MarcVDS going to do this year then?

We know they're going to do at least the Nurburgring 24h and some VLN races as a BMW semi-works team, apart from that... TBA I guess.

[Speed-King]

No JRM Nissan in BES or BSS.

One/off appearances are possible, but they'd like to focus on supporting their customer teams.

Source (in Flemish)

[KA]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

No JRM Nissan in BES or BSS.

One/off appearances are possible, but they'd like to focus on supporting their customer teams.

Source (in Flemish)

So does this imply that there might be customer Nissan entries to be announced for either BES or BSS?

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

We know they're going to do at least the Nurburgring 24h and some VLN races as a BMW semi-works team, apart from that... TBA I guess.

I believe we can expect MVDS in WEC, guess we´ll find out next week.

[Rodger Davies]

They'll enter Spa but not other BES races, as far as I know. N24 is the focus.

Three Audis confirmed today for WRT with a fourth for Spa, so their presence is still very strong.

[JD Media]

It still looks like every brand has a ´works´ team in the Pro category...

- Audi has WRT
- Mercedes has HTP
- Ferrari has Kessel
- Bentley with M-Sport?
- ProSpeed with Porsche

- McLaren will probably place Estre (& Parente/Verdonck/Soucek/Carrol?) somewhere at Gulf Racing/Boutsen or ART
- just guessing, but with VDS leaving ROAL will be 'the' BMW team..?
- This other Porsche team Pro GT by Almeras had some Porsche factory drivers during the 24 hour of Spa (Timo Bernhard/Jorg Bergmeister) so might be also a (semi) works team with other drivers as Lapierre & Perrera?

I think there will be enough cars in the Pro category

Hopefully Nissan and Aston will find a team to put some factory drivers in, then we have almost every brand in de Pro category! As the EmilFrey Racing Jag is also a Pro entry, at least it was at Spa last year...

[Rodger Davies]

Porsche was having a bit of a spend with it being the 50th year of the 911, I wouldn't expect a big push from them this year and likely not until the new 991 GT3-spec is on sale.

ROAL have connections with BMW in Italy, not sure if they receive any factory support from the Motorsport division though.

I expect a slimmer pro field this year, with the other classes remaining at similar levels and a few (unfortunately IMO) deciding to do ELMS instead.