With Formula One becoming ever more difficult to break into as a young driver, and single seater feeder series reaching maximum capacities, many aspiring hot prospects have switched to the world of sportscar and GT racing.
Once such teenager making the switch is the 18-year old Dries Vanthoor, brother of Audi Works driver Laurens. The Belgian youngster is partnering Dutch sensation Robin Frijns (2015 Champion) in the Belgian Audi Club WRT R8 LMS, as Dries gets used to the frantic nature of GT3 racing in the Blancpain GT Sprint series. The WRT team have Laurens (2014 Champion) in the sister car, and the Sprint series has the unique quality of brothers racing alongside each other in one team.
But what are the Blancpain GT series all about, and how has Dries risen through the ranks of the motorsport ladder?
Blancpain GT series
Title sponsor Blancpain and the SRO run two sports car cups for GT3 specification machinery. The two cups combine into an overall championship with trophies on offer for the winners of the Sprint and Endurance cup, as well as the top prize of the overall Driver’s and Manufacturer’s title.
Before aquiring Blancpain sponsorship, the series ran from 2010 as the FIA GT series, and attracted the last embers of the GT1 era, just as they were being phased out for updated machinery. However the high costs of the sport saw a shift to the ever growing GT3 formula of racing, and it proved to be the spark for a sportscar revolution.
Despite the Blancpain series’ short inception, it has become one of the fiercest and most respected sportscar series on the planet. Despite GT3’s popularity, the top classes in official FIA events run GTE (GTLM in America) specification cars, not the GT3 machines which are significantly cheaper and often privately run with manufacturer support on only a couple of teams.
GT3 cars are based on mass-production supercars, and as of 2016 over 20 manufacturers are represented with GT3 homologated cars. The usually weigh between 1200-1300kg and output between 500-600 BHP. The cars are balanced the through power-to-weight ratio,
The high competition and relative low cost, alongside some of the most prestigious tracks in the world was a winning formula from the start, as viewing figures increase year on year.so high power cars will usually be the heaviest, such as the new Mercedes AMG GT.
Blancpain also have free to view coverage of all of their races on their official website, something not many high profile championships can lay claim to, in addition to the marquee event of the TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa.
Dries Vanthoor
Dries’ karting history is relatively under documented, but the young Belgian worked his way up the ranks of the karting scene in his native land. The youngster decided to stay in the Rotax championships, competing in both Dutch and Belgian Rotax Max championships from 2008 to 2013.
In 2012 and 2013, Dries competed in the BNL Karting series whilst still competing in the Rotax class, taking on some of the best young Karters in Holland and Belgium. Bearing in mind the competition, and the huge grids, 15th and 8th was very respectable, and prepared him for the step up to Formula Renault 2.0 in 2015.
In a series dominated by Swiss sensation Louis Deletraz, Vanthoor managed to take his first win in cars for Josef Kaufmann Racing in one of the most competitive Formula Renault fields in the championship’s history.Two more podiums and 6th place in the championship was enough to catch the eye of the WRT Racing scouts, who placed him alongside 2015 Blancpain GT series champion Robin Frijns.
In early 2016, Dries competed in his first sportscar event at the 24 hours of Dubai, in a Porsche 911 cup car. Despite being just 17 years old at the time, the Belgian youngster was able to secure a podium finish on his GT debut, proving Dries is going to be able to emerge from older brother Laurens’ shadow.
It’s never easy being the younger sibling in a racing dynasty ( just ask Ralf Schumacher), however Dries is one of the rare examples of a younger sibling making a name for himself outside of the footsteps of his older brother. With the Belgian starlet gaining more and more experience by the weekend, one has to wonder whether it will be too long before we see the Vanthoor brothers sharing a works Audi LMP drive.
