Enzo Ide and Christopher Mies lived a rather difficult weekend during the opening round of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup in Misano, Italy. The WRT Audi pairing took a good fifth spot in the qualifying race on Saturday, but a minor incident in race 2 made a second point finish impossible. “It must have been the most difficult weekend we ever had”, told Enzo Ide, while leaving the Italian racetrack.
The impressive 34-car grid arrived in Misano for the first meeting of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup, with Enzo Ide and Christopher Mies carrying the number 1 on their Audi R8 LMS GT3. Audi, Mercedes, McLaren, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bentley were all present for yet again another exciting edition of the strongest GT championship in Europe. Defending champion Enzo Ide continues with WRT Audi for another season of course.
Qualifying was a difficult exercise for the Audi drivers, finishing only 18th… “This was the first time that we missed out Q3”, commented Ide on Saturday morning. “The car is not easy to drive, we will try to do what we can.”
The first race was rather positive, with a 5th spot after an hour during night race. “There was a big shunt in the opening lap, we stayed out of trouble and never took any risk. This paid off with a good 5th position at the finish. This is our philosophy, we don’t take stupid risks, and we want to score points at every occasion.”
The opening laps of the main race showed again what Mies and Ide did last year on every occasion. Enzo took a good start and things looked good again: “But than I made a small mistake, lost over 10 positions and we came home in 11th, just out of the points. This was really a difficult weekend. We now have to work hard to perform again at Brands-Hatch.”