In addition to its full-season title assaults in both the British GT Championship and European Le Mans Series this year, Barwell Motorsport will be making a return to the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES) for round two at Silverstone on June 1st-2nd. Having run the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 GT3 in last year’s BES, this time the Surrey-based outfit will be campaigning the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Mark Poole and Richard Abra.
The MP Motorsport-backed pairing made a strong impression on their recent British GT debut, qualifying as lead Aston Martin and challenging for a podium position at Rockingham. They will be hoping to repeat this performance as they challenge for honours in the BES Pro-Am class at Silverstone, and will be bolstered in their efforts by the addition of British GT star, Joe Osborne, to the driver line-up. Joe competes against them in a BMW Z4 in British GT this year, but in 2009 he was part of the Barwell Motorsport Ginetta G50Z-Zytek squad (alongside Olly Bryant) that took a double victory in the British series at Rockingham.
At present the Silverstone event is the only Blancpain round on the team’s radar for this season, as Poole and Abra will continue their main thrust in British GT as well as taking in some other major one-off events during the 2013 season.
Richard Abra: “I am really excited to race in the Blancpain series, competition will be fierce but it’s a great opportunity for us to gain experience in top level GT racing. I’m also really looking forward to having Joe Osborne as our 3rd driver, he is a good friend of the team and although I’d never tell him to his face, he’s fast, and a safe pair of hands!”