Heading into the new season with a strong turn-out

Stuttgart. With two races on the Bahrain International Circuit on 13th and 14th March, the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup takes off into the new season. In the desert Kingdom, 25 drivers line up on the grid with the new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and will attempt to make a good start towards the title in two twelve-lap sprints on the Grand Prix circuit.

Interest from teams in the popular brand trophy series, which has run exclusively to the Formula 1 World Championship since 1993, is as great as ever. “We have several new teams joining our regular squads to compete this year. This is a promising sign in not such easy times,” says Jens Walter, head of Porsche makes cups. He is also extremely pleased with the strong driver line-up consisting of seasoned players and talented youngsters. “As far as drivers are concerned, we haven’t seen such a strong grid in years.”

Jeroen Bleekemolen spearheads the field as title defender and double Supercup winner. This season the Dutchman races for the new team, Al Faisal Lechner Racing, and is joined by his arch rival of 2009, René Rast as teammate. In the tight battle for the 2009 title, Rast notched up six victories, one more in fact than Bleekemolen, while the Dutchman impressed with his consistent performances. He was the sole driver to climb the podium at all 13 rounds. Another strong contender from last year is Stefan Rosina (Lechner Racing) from Slovakia. Joining him in the circle of favourites for the title are Supercup record winner Patrick Huisman (Netherlands) for Konrad Motorsport as well as Sascha Maassen (Germany) driving for the Abu Dhabi by tolimit team. Maassen celebrated his greatest successes as Porsche works driver with victories and the championship title in the American Le Mans Series as well as in the Le Mans and Sebring long distance classics.

The new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup is raced at ten championship rounds this season. All races take place as support events to Formula 1. The output of the six-cylinder boxer engine has increased to 450 hp. Exclusively for the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup, the successor to the most-built race car of all time with 1400 units features the innovative Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake PCCB and an even more dynamic and striking sound.

Talented youngster, Niall Breen, has managed the leap into the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup and is supported by Porsche as a “Porsche Motorsport Talent”. The 23-year-old Irishman competes for Schnabl Engineering Team Parker Racing. Breen was selected after his convincing performance at a talent search conducted by Porsche in Vallelunga. And now he is eager to make the most of this opportunity.


Porsche Mobil1 Supercup – 2010 Calendar

13/14 March: Sakhir/Bahrain
09 May: Barcelona, Spain
16 May: Monte Carlo, Monaco
27 June: Valencia, Spain
11 July: Silverstone, Great Britain
25 July: Hockenheim, Germany
01 August: Budapest, Hungary
29 August: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
12 September: Monza, Italy

 

Looking forward to it


Shedward's is back

 

that is a great turn-out of entries in these troubling economic times.
it is pretty telling when you get talent like Maassen in the series, again.

 

Hey DJ,

I have attended the first 2 rounds @ Bahrain GP and man what an event ! My Cousin is participating as "Rookie" this season for for Abu Dhabi by tolimit team...

The race was amazing and that deep noise from that cup car is freaking unbelievable !

Took couple of pics that will you enjoy

I am planning to attend upcoming rounds whenever I got the chance to do so...

 

Where's the Teamspeed sponsored car?

 

GMG is the only one we are on right now

 

Ad great pics! If you noticed I edited them a tad and hosted from my flickr account as it looks much better that way then using the forum up-loader which compresses the images. It's a simple copy/paste if you want to use flickr.com or photobucket.com for all your images, I recommend that to all!

 

Thanks DJ