CAR BLANCPAIN
CAR BLANCPAIN ENDURANCE SERIES PRO AM REAPING THE REWARDS OF HARD WORK © Photos: Emil Frey Racing EMIL FREY RACING TEAM The Blancpain Endurance Series is a great success story. It was initiated in 2011 as the successor series to the FIA-GT Championship. The programme included four three-hour races, with the 24 Hours of Spa (Belgium) as the season highlight. Some 60 top-class GT3 cars from a current total of nine manufacturers battled it out for points and cups on legendary race tracks such as Monza, Silverstone, Le Castellet and the Nürburgring. The 24- hour classic in Spa goes one better, involving more than 70 teams running three to four drivers in the PRO, PRO-AM and Gentlemen categories. A cleverly devised Balance of Performance ensures equality of opportunity in each case. For the Emil Frey Racing Team, the last race at the Nürburgring was also the season highlight. The increasingly strong Swiss Jaguar Team finished the race as the winner in its class, thereby securing fifth place in the overall ranking. This was the reward for drivers Lorenz Frey, Fredy Barth and Gabriele Gardel after a season full of hard work. EUROPEAN TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP (FIA ETCC) A GREAT FINISH TO THE SEASON Gaining the maximum number of points available in the last qualifying runs of the Touring Car Championship (FIA ETCC), Rikli Motorsport brought the 2015 season to an impressive conclusion in Sicily. As long ago as the late 1990s, Peter Rikli had tasted success in the Italian Touring Car Championship at the Autodromo around the picturesque Lago di Pergusa, a track just under five kilometres in length. In the run-up to this weekend, however, nobody was expecting him to put in a repeat performance in the equivalent European contest. And yet the man from Wangen an der Aare dominated the class of Super 2000 cars right from the very first training run, taking maximum points from the two races and finishing the season as championship runner-up. © Photos: Rikli Motorsport SÉBASTIEN BUEMI FORMULA E ELECTRIFIED PETER RIKLI Sébastien Buemi and MOTOREX have been a team ever since the world-class Swiss driver‘s racing debut. Buemi clinched the runner-up title in the first season of the eagerly awaited Formula E (purely electrically powered vehicles), and with an outright victory in the opening race of the 2015/2016 season he left no doubt that his sights are now firmly set on winning the title. 20
CAR GTWC GERMAN TOURING CAR CUP HIGHLY CONSISTENT CHRISTOPH SCHÜPBACH Photo: © racingimrollstuhl.ch Christoph Schüpbach has been in a wheelchair ever since a skiing accident in 2008. Yet his racing performance in the Ferrari 430 Challenge has proved it will take more than this to stop him. A consistent showing led him to finish the 2015 season as runner-up in Division 1 of the GTWC. LAMBORGHINI SUPER TROFEO HURACÁN PRO CUP GOLDEN AND FAST Patric Niederhauser‘s all-gold Lamborghini is certainly an eye-catcher. This season, he is now second in the interim ranking with his Raton Racing team. PATRIC NIEDERHAUSER Photos: © patricniederhauser.com OPEL ASTRA OPC CUP SOLID THIRD POSITION IN THE OVERALL RANKING Together with her fellow team member Marcel Senn, young Swiss driver Jasmin Preisig put in a sound performance in the Astra Cup. The two finished third in the grand season finale at the Nürburgring, reflecting an increasing improvement towards the end of the season. They also came third in the final overall ranking. JASMIN PREISIG 21
