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Andy Meyrick helps power the Msport Bentley to its first GT3 win! By Rob & Marion Allender

After a fraught series of Free Testing sessions, Welshman Andy Meyrick, and his Msport team-mates did the business in the early morning Sunday Qualifing sessions to put their Msport Bentley Continental GT3 onto the 2^nd row of the grid for the 3 hour Blancpain Endurance Race, the 2^nd round in the Blancpain Endurance Series.  After Andy confirmed “4^th place is good considering we haven’t been able to do much dry running, what with the monsoon we had on Friday! We were in this position at Monza but bear in mind this is only our 2^nd race in the Blancpain Endurance Series, so hopefully we can convert our qualifying into to a good result in the race.” Speaking about his hectic life combining his work with Seb Morris, and the MSA Academy , as well as driving the Deltawing in America and driving for the Bentley in Europe, he confirmed “Yes it’s a busy life, I’ve been very lucky Bentley have let me continue racing in America, and in the meantime I’ve moved house as well!’ With all that going on, driving must be a relief! ‘Yes, that’s true!

  (left Andy is all smiles after Qualifying Photo by Rob Allender)

At the start of the race, the 2^nd round of the 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series run to GT3 regulations, the Bentley Continental driven first by Guy Smith, got a good start and moved up into 2^nd place, behind the leading  ART Grand Prix teams' McLaren MP4-12C. However Smith was passed by the leading McLaren’s sister car to run in 3^rd place. Worse was to come as Smith, along with 7 other cars, was given a ‘Drive Through’ penalty for ‘improving his lap time’ under a Yellow Flag! Although Smith seemed somewhat bemused by the incident, the Bentley had now dropped to 4^th place! After almost an hours running, the Bentley came in right on cue for a pit stop to refuel, fit new tyres and make a change of driver, with Andy Meyrick taking over! Andy then began the race of his life as he hurled the Bentley Continental around the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit and hauled in, and passed, the Audi R8 driven by the highly experienced Stéphane Ortelli to retake 3^rd!  Meyrick continued to pound in the lap times and then took 2^nd place from the 2nd placed McLaren MP4-12C with another decisive overtaking manoeuvre, before handing over to his team-mate Stephen Kane. Kane now had the leading McLaren MP4-12C, driven by the highly experienced Spanish driver Andy Soucek, in his sights! However before they could get to grips, the race was slowed by the safety car, to allow the marshals to clear away some crashed cars. Once the safety car period had ended Soucek was able to make a break as Kanes’ Bentley was trapped behind some lapped cars! This meant that Soucek initally had a 5 second lead from Kane, but Kane closed in and passed Soucek to lead the race with 20 minutes to go and then pulled away to win by just over 1.5 seconds to give the bellowing Mpsort Bentley Continental GT3 car its’ first win in only its 3^rd ever race!

(left What a selfie! Andy, Guy, Stephen and Msport boss Malcolm Wilson show their joy after Bentleys historic win!)

This was the cue for wild celebrations in the Bentley pits, with the drivers Meyrick, Smith & Kane all wearing big smiles! After the customary champagne shower from the top step of the podium and the presentation of the special Blancpain trophy Andy paid tribute to the team ‘I can't thank the Msport Bentley team & technicians at Dovenby Hall enough. They have worked so hard, they are such an incredible team! ’

The Msport Bentley team are now only 8 points behind the ART Grand Prix team who are currently top of the table 1^st ART Grand Prix  43 points  2^nd  M-Sport Bentley  35 pts. Andy & his team-mates are joint 3^rd in the drivers table, only 2 points behind the leader Andy Soucek

There are 5 points scoring opportunities left. The next round of the Blancpain Endurance Series is at Paul Ricard in the South of France on the 27^th & 28th June.

N.B The Blancpain logo proclaims it to be ‘Manufacture de Haute Horlogerie’ and the website http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/endurance/about/blancpain

explains ‘Founded in 1735 by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain, the watch brand bearing his name is the oldest in the world. Blancpain is currently engaged to the renewal of mechanical watchmaking and to passing on exceptional expertise from one generation to the next through constant investment in human resources, production facilities and research. This approach is its strength and the expression of our long-term vision, even though it goes against the tide of a certain tendency to seek immediate profit.’

The Blancpain website has live Timing and video links on  http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/endurance/

Website address : www.bentleymotorsport.com

Twitter account : @BentleyComms

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bentleymotors