The 2022 International GT Open takes the ‘fast track’ at Paul Ricard

Three weeks after the kick-off of the 2022 season, the International GT Open is off to its second round, scheduled at the Circuit Paul Ricard, the popular venue in Southern France. The fast 5.822-km track is completely different from Estoril and it will be extremely interesting to see how this will play on the scale of values among the 20 cars entered.

In Portugal, the Lamborghini Huracans of Oregon Team took both wins with Benja Hites- Leonardo Pulcini, thanks to perfect races rather than a clearly expressed dominance in performance. The Chilean-Italian pair is obviously leading the standings, six points ahead of the Optimum Motorsport McLaren of Nick Moss-Joe Osborne, who have successfully debuted in the Pro category with two second positions and will aim at their first success.

The third position in the standings is shared by the other Oregon Team pair, Glenn Van Berlo- Kevin Gilardoni, and the revelation of the season-opener, the pair formed by Reema Juffali and Adam Christodoulou.

With a mission that extends beyond the track, the first Saudi female driver at this level of GT racing together with her expert teammate, has exceeded expectations bringing home a double Pro-Am win and one overall podium finish. Theeba Motorsport will make its full- fledged debut as a team in France, after having raced their Mercedes AMG with the assistance of SPS in Portugal.

As seen, the fight is close in the Pro-Am category, with the Mercedes of Olimp Racing entrusted to Marcin Jedlinski-Karol Basz second 6 points behind and the Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 of Roman Ziemian-Axcil Jefferies in third, 9 points behind.

The Swiss squad enters another car in the class, for Murat Cuhadaroglu-David Fumanelli, while the Mercedes camp has other aces in the field, starting from Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler, the Swiss duo of SPS Automotive Performance, the two pairs of GetSpeed Performance, Steve Jans-Sébastien Baud and Janine Shoffner-Moritz Kranz, and the GT Team duo, Bernhard Laber-Alain Valente.

The Ricard round will see a significant new entry in the class, as Aust Motorsport will perform its first selected outing. The well-known German squad is entering an Audi R8 LMS for Germany’s Dino Steiner, who has a brilliant past in IMSA, and Austrian young gun Max Hofer.

The Am category is equally competitive: at Estoril, the class wins were shared between the Kessel Racing Ferrari of Omar Jackson-Charlie Hollings and the Mann Filter Team Landgraf of Alex Hrachowina-Martin Konrad, but the Am standings are led (by only 4 points) by the AF Corse Ferrari of Laurent de Meeus-Jamie Stanley.

GetSpeed and Olimp Racing are well represented in the class with their Mercedes, respectively entrusted to Kiki Sak Nana-Adam Osieka and Stanislaw Jedlinski-Krystian Korzeniowski, while two of the cars destroyed at Estoril have been ‘resurrected’ for the French round: Stephen Earle-Erwin Zanotti will be driving their Kessel Ferrari, while Giuseppe Cipriani (Il Barone Rampante Lamborghini) is expected to drive alone their machines. The Baporo Motorsport Mercedes will reappear at Spa.

Another ‘solo’ contender will be Switzerland’s Pascal Bachmann, a former Am champion in the European GT4 series, who will make his debut in the series with the Aston Martin Vantage of Street Art Racing, the Belgian squad known for fielding art cars. In this instance, Christophe de Fierlant has signed the colourful livery of the car.

At Paul Ricard, the GT Open will share the race programme with its sister GT Sport-promoted series, the Euroformula Open and the GT Cup Open Europe, which holds its first round of the season, and with the always spectacular TCR Europe and Maxx Formula.

The entry list is here