With three wins in four races, Emil Frey Racing is currently heading up the Championship Standings in the International GT Open Series and has shown a good performance since debuting with the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO. One of the highlights of the year is taking place next week: the upcoming two races are being hosted at the legendary rollercoaster Formula-One race track at Spa-Francorchamps.
The demanding track suited within the Belgium Ardennes is the longest in the calendar, stretching over 7.004 kilometres and offers plenty of diversion with its many altitudes and 21 corners. Back in March, the Swiss team concluded a two-day test at the track and since its latest upward trend, especially the improving performance in qualifying, is well-prepared for the next race weekend. However, Francorchamps is also known, amongst its famous waffles, for its unpredictable freaky weather, which has often led to chaos with strategies.
The eagerly awaited weekend will kick-off with two free practice sessions on Friday, 7th June 2019. The first qualifying will take place on Saturday, 08th June 2019 at 11:20 am, followed by the 70-minute race at 4:45 pm. The second qualifying is at 10:35 am on Sunday, 09th June 2019, with the one-hour race later the same day from 03:05 pm. All sessions and races are broadcast live via GT Open https://www.youtube.com/user/GTOPENseries
Team Quotes
Lorenz Frey-Hilti, Team Principal Emil Frey Racing
“Following our double victory at Hockenheim, the team confirmed its performance from the opening round. However, we are now facing a 15-seconds time penalty for the next race at the obligatory pitstop. Of course, it will be very difficult to drive in the Top-10 with this handicap. In case we will not drive onto the podium in Saturday’s race, the handicap will be deleted again. Therefore, we have to try our best to get some points on Saturday in order to be able to fully attack again on Sunday. In previous races, we have proven that we can achieve a good result even when coming from a difficult starting point.”
Jürg Flach, Technical Director Emil Frey Racing
“I think, the upcoming weekend at Spa-Francorchamps will be difficult for us. Despite having shown an increasing performance, we will be lacking power due to the current BoP-classification, especially at a track like that with its altitudes such as Eau Rouge or the long left-corner at Blanchimont. The track suits us, however, from a handling point of view and as always we will do our best and we will see if we can achieve another victory in the third race weekend.”
Driver Quotes Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO #14
Norbert Siedler (AUT)
“Of course, we are optimistic ahead of the third round of the season after our double victory and I think we can achieve another good overall result. It will be more difficult than previously though as we have a certain basic weight with our Lamborghini and this will have an impact with all the height differences at Spa.”
Mikael Grenier (CAN)
“I am looking forward to Spa, because it is one of my absolute favourite circuits. We hope, that we will be competitive with our performance with all the altitudes. You could see at Hockenheim that once we are in traffic, we are not as fast as the McLaren or Mercedes. But we had good and promising test there in March so I think it should be another good weekend for the team.”
Driver Quotes Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO #63
Albert Costa Balboa (ESP)
“We have shown a good team work at Hockenheim and after the tests we had at Spa, I am confident that we will drive onto the podium again. We are currently leading the championship, but it is too early in the season to think about that. It still feels good though and I am very motivated to keep or even extend that lead after Spa.”
Giacomo Altoé (ITA)
“I know the track of Spa-Francorchamps quite well as I drove there a few times last year. Especially after the success from Hockenheim we are quite confident, because we had a good and successful test program at Spa. But we don’t know yet how strong our competitors will be and the first session on Friday will show, where we are.”