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Welsh drivers Julian Westwood & Andy Meyrick both have
plenty to race for in the final round 2015 Blancpain
Endurance Series, the iRacing.com GT500 race at the Nürburgring!
by Rob & Marion Allender
 Veteran
Cardiff racer Julian Westwood & the Team Parker Racing crew will
travel to Germany for the final round in the 2015 Blancpain Endurance
Series, the iRacing.com GT500 race, which will decide the
2015 Blancpain Series Titles on 19/20th September, at the top of both the Driver and the Teams standings on
the AM Class, after pummelling their Class opposition in the
Total 24hrs of Spa! In a dominant performance they scored the
maximum points available by leading the class at the 6th
hour and 12th hour marks and not only winning their
class, but finishing in 14th place overall with their
Audi R8 LMS Ultra! Team boss Stuart Parker
summed up ‘Yes it’s a tight situation, but we’ve had no luck all
season apart from Spa. We were 4th in the class at
Monza, but that was a circuit that suited our rivals more than
us. As Silverstone we were running in 2nd place in
the closing laps, until we got knocked off the track. At Paul
Ricard in France we didn’t finish due to accident damage which
was a shame as we had a really good strategy but didn’t get
further than half distance! With regard to the season finale at
the Nürburgring, we really feel we are in a good place, we’ve
got the right mix and with a little bit of luck we will be right
on top of the podium! Jools (as they call Julian) is the Race
Engineer for our Porsche Cup Cars and he’s been an integral part
of the team for 10 years now, and it’s nice to see him get back
behind the steering wheel and help bring us success in the
Blancpain.”
Westwood’s
racing career stretched all the way from Formula Ford in the
late 1980s, into Formula 3000, (The top series of it’s day),
winning the Raymond Mays Trophy for the
Drive of the Year at Donington in 1991, and went on to win the
1997 Vauxhall Vectra Championship, and had other notable
success, before hanging up his helmet when he joined Team
Parker. So he is now relishing his return
to racing with his team-mates Ian Loggie & Benny Simonsen. ‘Ian
owns the car and we’ve had a mixed season, up until Spa. We
should have won our class in 2 of the 3 races but Spa went a lot
better. It was amazing, we were up to 7th overall at
one stage! Now it’s all down to the last race at the
Nurburgring, and it depends who enters, but we plan to go for
the win, which will help Ian and myself win the Class and also
Benny could come 3rd if the results go with us’
In the AM Class Team Standings, the
Leicestershire based Team
Parker Racing leads with 71 points and has a 5 points lead over
Glorax Racing (66 points) & Attempo Racing (65 pts, With 25
points available for a win, the team will hope to maintain their
Spa form in the final round on September 20th at the
Nürburgring.
2015 Blancpain Endurance
Series
AM Cup Class Teams Standings after 4 of 5
rounds 1st
Team Parker Racing
71 points, 2nd
Glorax Racing
66 points, 3rd
Attempto Racing
65 points.
AM Class Drivers’
Standings 1st
Ian Loggie and Julian
Westwood 71 pts 2nd
2
Fabio Mancini
66pts
Photo by Rob Allender
Meanwhile in the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series
Pro Cup. although none of their drivers are
in real contention for honours, the
Bentley M-Sport still has a lot to race for, as they are
only 13 points behind the current leaders the Belgian Audi Club
Team, but only 3 points ahead of the VDS BMW team! At times the
Bentley Continental GT3 has showed some real speed, and the team
will be expecting their drivers to show some real speed whilst
avoiding the pit-falls of endurance racing. Ideally the 2 cars,
with one car driven by Britain’s Andy Meyrick, Steven Kane & Guy
Smith and the other by Continental drivers Maximilian Buhk
(Germany) Max Soulet (Belgium) and the highly rated Spanish
driver Andy Soucek will finish 1-2 to maximise the teams’
chances. Andy has fully recovered from his Spa accident.
Pro Cup Team Class Standings after 4
of 5 rounds
1st
Belgian Audi Club Team WRT 74 points 2nd Bentley
M-Sport 61 points 3rd
BMW Sports VDS 58 Points
Website address :
www.bentleymotorsport.com
Twitter account : @BentleyComms
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/bentleymotors
http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/
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