The SRO GT World Challenge Europe championship held a pair of sprint races at the Hockenheim circuit in Germany last weekend, and BMW teams were successful in the various classes that make up the championship, collecting six podium placements and three wins in the pair of races.
BMW has entries in all three of the classes that make up the GT World Challenge Sprint Cup championship. BMW M Team WRT has the #32 M4 GT3 in the Pro Cup class for works drivers Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor, along with the #30 M4 GT3 in Silver Cup for Calan Williams and Sam de Haan. British team Century Motorsport also has the #991 M4 GT3 entered in the Bronze Cup class for works driver Dan Harper teamed up with Darren Leung.
Calan WIlliams gets ready to take over the #30 M4 GT3.
In qualifying for race one, the only BMW that performed well was the #30 Team WRT car, which qualified second in Silver Cup, but all three cars performed much better come race time. Dan Harper (shown in top photo) was one of the stars of the race, as he drove the wheels off the #991 car in his stint, going from 13th overall to third overall and first in the Bronze Cup class. Charles Weerts also put in a great performance, moving from 19th overall to sixth overall and third in the Pro Cup class before handing the car over.
When Darren Leung took over from Harper, he fell down the overall order (natural given that he’s a Bronze-rated driver) but maintained the class position to bring home a win in Bronze Cup. Dries Vanthoor took over from Weerts and pressured the leading Mercedes through the end of the race, ultimately finishing second overall and in the Pro Cup class. In the Silver Cup class, Calan Williams and Sam de Haan finished second in class and fifth overall.
Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts finished second in both races in the Pro Cup class.
Race two at Hockenheim followed much the same pattern as race one. The BMWs didn’t perform all that well in qualifying but performed much better in the race. The #32 was the best BMW qualifier, starting third overall, and they once again finished second overall in the race, this time behind the #14 Ferrari. The #30 M4 GT3 of Williams and de Haan qualified sixth in class but moved up to win the class race and finished fifth overall. The #991 Century Motorsport car of Harper and Leung qualified eighth in the Bronze Cup class but ended up scoring a class win as well and finished eleventh overall.
Calan WIlliams and Sam de Haan finished second and first in the Silver Cup class races.
After the Hockenheim races and with four races left to go, Vanthoor and Weerts lead the standings in the Pro Cup class (and overall) with a slim two-point advantage over Mercedes drivers Lucas Auer and Maro Engel. Williams and de Haan lead the Silver Cup class points, while Harper and Leung put themselves in a position to fight for the championship in the Bronze Cup class.
Century Motorsport drivers Darren Leung (left) and Dan Harper celebrate their win.
The next GT World Challenge Sprint Cup races will take place at the Magny-Cours circuit in France on August 23rd-25th. —David Haueter
[Photos by SRO]
Tags: sprint cup